Arkansas women’s track coach Lance Harter met with the media Thursday and talked about the women going to Eugene for the finals with a smaller squad due to injuries.
Van Horn on starting Knight, respect for ORU
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn after the Hogs’ final practice before opening NCAA Regional play Thursday on decision to start Blaine Knight, respect for Oral Roberts and more.
Five golfers with Arkansas roots tee off in US Women’s Open
SHOAL CREEK, Ala. — Five current and former Arkansas women’s golfers teed it up on Thursday in round one of the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open in Shoal Creek, Alabama.
Kaylee Benton came off the course with a 2-over 74. The Buckeye, Arizona, native had a colorful scorecard that included four birdies, four bogeys and one double.
#ProHog Stacy Lewis finished with a 3-over 75 in the first round. Lewis began her day on the back nine and opened quickly with birdies on Nos. 10 and 13 to get to 2-under.
The Woodlands, Texas, native doubled No. 14 and added three bogeys throughout the remainder of her round.
Razorback junior Women’s Golf Coaches Association All-American Maria Fassi counted a 4-over 76 in her round. Her day included just one birdie and she had 13 par holes.
#ProHog Gabriela Lopez struggled on the back nine shooting 4-over on holes 10-18. She picked up two more bogeys on the front side and tallied her only birdie of the round on No 2.
Junior Dylan Kim was the last Razorback off the course playing in the afternoon session. Kim shot a 2-over 74 and is tied with Benton and several other players.
Kim opened her round with a birdie starting on No. 1. She picked up four bogeys but finished strong with a birdie on No. 14 followed by four consecutive par holes.
There is a three-way tie for the lead with players shooting a 5-under 67. Several players are still on the course and positions are not final.
Round 2 Tee Times
8:41 a.m. No. 10 Dylan Kim
12:42 p.m. No. 10 Gabriela Lopez
12:53 p.m. No. 10 Maria Fassi
1:15 p.m. No. 1 Stacy Lewis
2:32 p.m. No. 1 Kaylee Benton
Fassi also earned a sponsor’s exemption to the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G.
Benton, Kim and recently graduated senior Alana Uriell will all take part in the Monday qualifier on June 18, with weekend action beginning Friday, June 22.
Fassi, Kim and Uriell’s summer continues as members of the inaugural Palmer Cup teams. It is the first year for women to be included at the event which takes place at the Evian Resort Golf Club in France, July 6-8.
The leading United States college players will compete against the leading college players from the rest of the world in continental Europe.
The teams are made up of 12 men and 12 women and are selected according to nationality.
Break out sunscreen; league puts Hogs in afternoon
FAYETTEVILLE — You might want to bring sunscreen and plenty of water for Arkansas’ first two home games this year.
Game times and networks for the Razorbacks’ football games against Eastern Illinois and North Texas this upcoming season were announced Thursday by the Southeastern Conference.
The Razorbacks’ Sept. 1 season opener against Eastern Illinois in renovated Razorback Stadium will kick off at 3 p.m. on SEC Network.
After a trip to Colorado State in Week 2, Arkansas will welcome North Texas to Fayetteville on Sept. 15, for a 3 p.m. matchup televised on SEC Network Alternate.
The remainder of the Razorbacks’ game time and television schedule will be announced during the season.
2018 Arkansas Football Schedule
Sept. 1 – EASTERN ILLINOIS, 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network
Sept. 8 – at Colorado State, 6:30 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network
Sept. 15 – NORTH TEXAS, 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network Alternate
Sept. 22 – at Auburn
Sept. 29 – vs. Texas A&M (Arlington, Texas)
Oct. 6 – ALABAMA
Oct. 13 – OLE MISS
Oct. 20 – TULSA
Oct. 27 – VANDERBILT
Nov. 3 – Open Date
Nov. 10 – LSU
Nov. 17 – at Mississippi State
Nov. 24 – at Missouri
Hogs’ final practice before regional starts Friday
Arkansas had a short practice Thursday morning in preparation of opening the Fayetteville Regional of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at 2 p.m.
Knight will start first game of regional for Razorbacks
FAYETTEVILLE — Dave Van Horn wouldn’t say it earlier in the week, but Arkansas announced Wednesday Blaine Knight will be the starter against Oral Roberts on Friday.
Honestly, it would have been a surprise if anyone else started.
“We play really good (defense) behind him,” Van Horn said Monday. “It seems we make play after play and he makes pitch after pitch, and when he gets in a jam he seems to find a way out of it and keep us in the game. He doesn’t give up big innings.”
Even thought Van Horn had dropped some hints that Kacey Murphy, normally the second-day starter, might go in the first game, nobody was really buying it.
Knight, who is 10-0 with a 2.78 ERA this season, has been steady all season.
“He’s very mature and whether it’s going good or bad, you really can’t tell,” Van Horn said. “A couple of years back it wasn’t that way. I think he realizes he has the stuff to get out of jams and stay under control.”
The Razorbacks are 12-3 when Knight has started this season. They haven’t lost with him pitching since April 20 at Mississippi State.
“He’s very mature on the mound and whether it’s going good or bad, you really can’t tell,” Van Horn said last week. “A couple of years back it wasn’t that way. I think he realizes he has the stuff to get out of jams and stay under control.
A year ago most felt Knight was headed to the major leagues, but the demand for a big signing bonus dropped him to the 29th round of the draft and he decided to stay in school another year.
“I’m happy I’m back and I’m happy that we got a regional here again,” he said this week.
Van Horn, too.
“I’m just glad he came back,” he said.
Oral Roberts (38-18) is expected to throw senior left-hander Miguel Ausua against Arkansas on Friday.
Ausua was the losing pitcher in the Golden Eagles’ 3-0 regional-opening loss to the Razorbacks last season when he went 6-1/3 innings and allowed one earned run. He is 8-1 on the season with a 3.27 ERA.
“He held us down pretty good last year,” Van Horn said. “It was a tight game. He’s a good pitcher.”
Hogs make final three for Georgia defensive lineman
Defensive lineman Mataio Soli announced via Twitter on Wednesday his final three schools and Arkansas is in that mix.
Mataio????Soli™ on Twitter
ALL GLORY TO GOD????????????????‼️ Here it is…
“First off, I want to thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to be able to live out my dream of playing college football at so many different colleges. I want to thank all of the coaches that have recruited me and for all that they’ve done for me and my family. With that being said, these are my Top 3 schools!”
Soli is the son of former Razorback defensive lineman Junior Soli, who had a standout career for the Hogs in the mid-1990s before he was drafted in the fifth round of the 1996 NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers with the No. 155 pick.
The Douglasville (Ga.) prospect has been a high target for the Hogs and defensive ends coach Steve Caldwell has been recruiting him. Caldwell visited Douglasville during the spring evaluation period.
Soli made an unofficial trip to Arkansas in the spring and has also been to Clemson, Alabama and Vanderbilt this spring.
His other offers include Notre Dame, Florida, Florida State, Louisville, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Stanford, Kentucky, Virginia Tech, Washington and several others.
Auburn making the newly-released top three is definitely notable considering the Tigers just offered last week.
CBS looking for other teams to play on Black Friday?
FAYETTEVILLE — CBS released it’s broadcast schedule for the 2018 college football season Wednesday, but hasn’t specified a game for the Friday after Thanksgiving.
That’s right, Arkansas fans, the annual tradition of a game on that date may not be in the cards this year for the Razorbacks.
The CBS release usually coincides each year with the SEC’s spring meetings and the past four years has included the network’s intention to broadcast the Arkansas-Missouri game.
Not this year, at least right now.
“We will have additional TV details come out in coming weeks and I believe that Friday game would be announced between now and media days,” SEC director of communication Chuck Dunlap said in an e-mail.
Since the Hogs entered the league in 1992, they have played on the Friday after Thanksgiving 20 of the last 22 seasons. The first time they moved the LSU game to that date was in 1996.
Arkansas and LSU played on that date every year from 1996-2008. The network talked Alabama coach Nick Saban into moving the Iron Bowl game with Auburn to that date for two years, but he didn’t like it and the Hogs-Tigers were back there for the 2011-13 seasons.
Then the network wanted LSU-Texas A&M on the final weekend of the season as Missouri moved into the Razorbacks’ permanent East opponent and the game moved to the final week of the season.
Arkansas and Missouri have played on the Friday date the last four years. There are some who believe that matchup is still under consideration for the national television date that does have some value in exposure to the program, which is why Frank Broyles lobbied to get it for the Hogs back in the mid-90’s.
With the delay, it is safe to assume CBS and the SEC are at the very least exploring options.
Here are the other games for that final weekend:
• Ole Miss at Mississippi State (Thanksgiving Day)
• Arkansas at Missouri
• Auburn at Alabama
• Florida at Florida State
• Georgia Tech at Georgia
• Kentucky at Louisville
• LSU at Texas A&M
• South Carolina at Clemson
• Tennessee at Vanderbilt
Out of the eight possible matchups, we can eliminate the Iron Bowl because neither Saban or Gus Malzahn wants the change in their regular schedule. Both detest any change of routine and have enough clout to avoid moving the game.
Everything else is wide open at this point. LSU-Texas A&M is a likely candidate and there is the possibility of ESPN putting an SEC matchup on Friday night.
The Arkansas-Missouri game has drawn an annual average TV audience of more than 2.9 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch.
Hogs won’t get ANY respect, but they will be better
As Steve Spurrier once said, it’s talking season in the SEC.
The official start for what I’ve always called the pre-mumbling part of that is the league’s spring meetings in Destin this week. For the media, it’s the greatest way to get your boss to pay for a week at the beach, but it’s going to be a lot of, well, nothing.
In mid-July we’ll have SEC Media Days in Atlanta this year for the second biggest media waste of time in my opinion. Since process servers quit hanging around the Wynfrey Hotel to serve Phillip Fulmer with court papers it’s gotten completely boring.
Oh, in the days when the league required coaches to hit radio row it was a little more entertaining, but now it’s interviewing the same people year in and year out, mostly involving media people interviewing other media people.
Also during the talking season will be predictions.
“Whadda ya’ think?” is media code for how you think the league will finish this season.
My answer since 1992 (and I think I’ve missed maybe five Media Days over that time, but hopefully that number will start to increase dramatically) has ALWAYS been Alabama in the West, Florida in the East.
Every single year. I don’t even bother to try and figure it out. I’ve been dead on the money nine times, over 34.6% of the time. Three times I hit half of it. That means nearly half the time my scientific method has hit one of the teams.
Preseason predictions are maybe fun for some people, but basically ridiculous. It’s like trying to predict the winner of an automobile race. You have no idea about all of the factors nobody can control.
In a sport where one injury can change most teams’ fortunes dramatically through 12 games, why even bother to figure it out? Just play the odds (which say Alabama and Florida statistically control) and enjoy yourself.
The other thing you can almost always count on is Arkansas getting little to no respect from either the media in the league or nationally.
Hey, don’t knock it. Embrace it, Hog fans.
You can look it up. When the Hogs are picked to do bad is when they do well. The biggest disappointments come when they are favored to win something and then fail to meet expectations that are usually unrealistic.
Since coming to the SEC, the only back-to-back big years were 2010-11 when Bobby Petrino’s last two teams had some great offensive playmakers and went 21-5, played in the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl in consecutive years.
Now the national media and many across the league are once again simply spouting babble about the Razorbacks needing time to get going after a coaching change that involves a change in style, blah, blah, blah.
Some even think the Hogs will go winless in the SEC this year.
Let me go out on a limb here and say that won’t happen. Usually a huge cynic, I’m thinking right now Arkansas will win three to five games in the league this year.
That’s because last year’s team had a conditioning problem far more than a talent problem. There have also been whispers of internal issues within the team. Some players didn’t like some coaches and vice versa. It doesn’t matter now.
What I did see in the spring were players that were quicker than last year, particularly in the offensive line. In today’s world of college football where just about everybody does zone blocking instead of just trying to flatten folks, speed and quickness are as critical as just raw size.
At Arkansas, Chad Morris inherited a team of players that played his style of football in high school, then failed when trying to do something else when they got to college. Bret Bielema didn’t recruit players experienced in his preferred style because, well, nobody in the South plays that way anymore.
Maybe I’m overly optimistic. We’ll see.
No one seems to want to see this team returns a bunch of players that blew fourth-quarter leads late in three games (Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Missouri). Remember, Bielema kept talking about how close that team was.
He was right in one respect. They were losing games they were close to winning. Games they should have won.
Games I think they will win this season.
Morris’ biggest coaching job is within the team. There is a different attitude and a different culture already.
It’s genuine optimism.
What we heard in the spring and offseason has been a belief they are getting better instead of sounding like they’re trying to talk themselves into believing they are better.
And that is why they will be better than most think.
