Report has ex-strength coach headed to Michigan

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Former Razorbacks director of strength and conditioning Ben Herbert, who served under Bret Bielema for several seasons at Wisconsin and Arkansas, is headed to Michigan, according to multiple reports.

Herbert will replace Kevin Tolbert for the Wolverines, who Jim Harbaugh fired two weeks ago. Herbert was gone when Bielema was fired after the season finale against Missouri the day after Thanksgiving.

Herbert will bring plenty of familiarity with the Big Ten to his new job with the Wolverines, spending 11 seasons on the strength and conditioning staff at Wisconsin, which is his alma mater.

Herbert followed Bielema to Arkansas after the former Badgers head coach left Madison for Fayetteville after the 2012 season.

Barford, Macon lead Hogs to overtime win over Vols

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas opened Southeastern Conference play Saturday with a thriller, overcoming a late deficit to overtake No. 19 Tennessee, 95-93, in overtime in front of a sold-out Bud Walton Arena.

Down nine with 3:53 to go in the second half, the Razorbacks used a 12-3 run to force overtime. Arkansas would go on a 16-5 run, including scoring 12 straight to claim its largest lead of the game at 11.

Tennessee would do its best to claw back, getting as close as two, but Arkansas would hang on to the victory to remain undefeated in Bud Walton Arena this season.

Senior guards Daryl Macon and Jaylen Barford both had career days. Macon recorded his second 30-point effort of his career, finishing with a career-high 33, while Barford posted a career-high 28.

The duo were clutch down the stretch combining for 31 of Arkansas’ final 41 points. It is the first time in program history that Arkansas had two players score 28-plus points in the same Southeastern Conference game.

Arkansas improved to 36-23 all-time against AP Top 25 in Bud Walton Arena, including 28-16 against top 20 teams.

The Volunteers started out hot from the field, hitting five of their first six shots from behind the arc, but Arkansas kept it close thanks to its defense creating turnovers in the back court. With 7:53 left in the first half, the Hogs only trailed by three, after forcing five Volunteer turnovers in the a five minute stretch.

Trailing nearly the entire first half, Arkansas went on a 10-2 run to tie the contest at 26-26 with 4:45 left to play in the frame with a three by Macon.

Tennessee finished the half on a 12-5 run to take a seven-point lead into the half.

Macon scored 11 of Arkansas’ final 15 points of the half, including a much needed three right before the buzzer to cut the Tennessee lead to 38-31.

Macon led the Razorbacks at the break with a game-high 13 points. It is the first time this season that the Razorbacks have trailed at the break at home.

The Vols would stretch their lead back to nine, before Arkansas went on an 8-0 run to claw back to a one-point game at 46-45. Tennessee would use a 6-0 run shortly after to stretch its leads back to nine.

Anytime the Razorbacks went on a small run, the Vols would answer with a big play.

Down 8, that is when the Bud Walton Arena magic took place.

Macon drilled a 3 in transition to cut the game to five, before Barford stole the inbounds pass and freshman forward Daniel Gafford got an offensive rebound off a Barford miss and finish to cut the lead to deficit to 3.

Tennessee would respond with a basket of their own, before the Razorbacks used a 6-0 run to take their first lead of the night off of monster dunk by Gafford.

Arkansas forced overtime, where it scored the most points in program history (22) in the extra frame to defeat the Volunteers.

The Razorbacks take the show on the road for their next two games, as Arkansas travels to Starkville, Mississippi to face the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on the SEC Network, before traveling to Auburn next Saturday for a match-up with the Tigers at 5 p.m. on ESPNU.

Game Notes

• The victory over No. 19 Tennessee is the 10th AP Top 25 victory under head coach Mike Anderson.

• With the win, Arkansas have claimed multiple top-20 wins in a season for the third time in the Mike Anderson era.

• The Razorbacks eclipsed the 90-point mark for the ninth time in 13 games this season, the most since the National Championship run in 1994.

• The Razorbacks improve to 15-12 all-time in SEC openers, including a 9-4 mark in Bud Walton Arena to open league play.

• During the last four season, Arkansas ranks second in the conference in league wins with 35.

• Arkansas improves its winning streak in Bud Walton Arena to 11 straight, dating back to last year.

• The Razorbacks have a season-long six-game winning streak.

• The win gives Arkansas eight straight wins in Bud Walton Arena (8-0) to start the season for the fifth time in seven seasons under Mike Anderson.

• In eight games in Bud Walton Arena this year, the Razorbacks are 8-0 with a +181 scoring margin, including a +116 scoring margin in the first half.

Anderson on team ‘finding way to win’ against Vols

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas coach Mike Anderson talked with the media about his team finding a way to win against Tennessee in the SEC opener Saturday afternoon.

Barford, Macon talk about overtime win over Vols

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas’ Jaylen Barford and Daryl Macon talked with the media after battling back to down Tennessee on Saturday afternoon.

Tennessee’s Barnes on losing in overtime to Hogs

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Tennessee coach Rick Barnes had praise for Arkansas after seeing his team lose a game they led most of the way Saturday.

Hogs make contact with Louisiana cornerback

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas will at least be getting a visit from highly recruited cornerback Eddie Smith from Slidell, Louisiana (Salmen).

Chad Morris’ staff made Smith an offer Dec. 22 and Mark Smith, who has joined Morris in Fayetteville, talked with Eddie Smith the next day, according to a report from Recruiting Thursday’s Richard Davenport at WholeHogSports.com.

“He called me and told me they have a whole new staff at Arkansas, and he let me know how much they like me and how they love my film and my height and how I could come in there and play early as a freshman,” Smith told Davenport.

Smith, 6-1, 178, 4.40, has offers from Tennessee, TCU, Missouri, Georgia, Louisville, Ole Miss, Oklahoma State and Mississippi State among the more than 30 he has received.

He committed to TCU in June but reopened his recruiting on Dec. 17.

 

Familiar face may be returning to Razorbacks

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Former Arkansas defensive line coach Steve Caldwell may be coming back to Fayetteville, according to media reports.

Texas A&M defensive coordinator John Chavis is expected to be named as Arkansas’ new defensive coordinator under new coach Chad Morris.

Caldwell was defensive ends coach at Arkansas from 2010-12 under Bobby Petrino and added special teams coordinator to those duties in his final season.

Caldwell joined the staff of Bryan Harsin at his alma mater, Arkansas State, in 2013. In 2014 he left with Harsin to go to Boise State. He has been assistant head coach and in charge of the defensive line there the past four seasons.

It has been rumored that John Scott, Jr., who coached the defensive line in 2017 at Arkansas under Bret Bielema, could join Morris’ staff as well. If so, he would likely coach defensive tackles.

Chavis is expected to coach the linebackers. At A&M, Terry Price coached the defensive ends and David Turner had the defensive tackles and was run game coordinator.

Caldwell also recruited well, getting Trey Flowers, Martrelle Spaight among others who are playing in the NFL now.

We still don’t know what we don’t know on buyout

Andy Hodges
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After dragging Attorney General Leslie Rutledge into the mix, we still don’t know anything more than we did before about Bret Bielema’s contract.

Rutledge ruled earlier this week the Razorback Foundation could release the information about the buyout, but what we got was basically the same thing we’ve seen since former athletics director Jeff Long gave Bielema an extension back in February 2015.

ESPN, citing one anonymous source, reported Dec. 2 that Bielema and the athletic program agreed to an $11.8 million “negotiated buyout” that would be signed within a “few days.”

No one has been able to confirm that since then.

Now we find out, well, everybody is still trying to get things finalized, according to a story at WholeHogSports.com:

Scott Varady, the foundation’s executive director, said Thursday evening in a brief email that its release agreement with Bielema has not been finalized.

“I can share that we continue to work with Coach Bielema’s agent on the final release agreement,” Varady said. “We have not completed that process yet.”

Apparently, this has nothing to do with the UA, but is all being handled by the Foundation, according to the story:

UA Trustee Tommy Boyer said the university system’s governing board has not been part of the discussions.

“We haven’t been involved in that at all,” Boyer said. “It’s a deal between Bret Bielema and the foundation, not a deal between Bret Bielema and the University of Arkansas. We only deal with the University of Arkansas side, and the foundation has its own separate board of directors. They deal with that.”

What was released Thursday was the same agreement we’ve been seeing for months.

So the bottom line to all this is: It’s still being negotiated. Which means it would be interesting to see if Rutledge thinks the communication between all the parties should be public information.

If it was the UA doing it, we could see that communication. At the very least phone records would reveal a number of phone calls.

But that hasn’t happened yet.

So we still don’t know what we don’t know about Bielema’s final buyout numbers.

Anderson on Hogs’ game with Vols Saturday

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas coach Mike Anderson met with the media Friday and talked about the SEC opener Saturday against Tennessee.

Barford, Thompson on being ready for SEC opener

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas’ Jaylen Barford and Trey Thompson met with the media Friday to talk about the Razorbacks’ SEC opener against Tennessee on Saturday.

Will we find out about Chavis by Friday night?

Andy Hodges
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With national media now saying Texas A&M defensive coordinator John Chavis will be joining Chad Morris’ staff at Arkansas, everyone is wondering, well, when?

Considering the Aggies meet Wake Forest in the Belk Bowl at noon Friday, he should be free by dark Arkansas time.

When should we expect an announcement? No idea, but you have to think it will be soon after that.

Could Morris trot to midcourt with Chavis in tow during the basketball game with Tennessee on Saturday?

That might be pushing it, but, hey, the Razorback Foundation plane has had a couple of weeks to get cleaned up after the whirlwind of activity from Thanksgiving to the first couple of weeks in December.

By now if Chavis is not the choice everybody is going to be stunned.

But it has given a chance for some in-depth research into Chavis’ numbers.

He’s been a defensive coordinator for 23 years at Tennessee (1995-2008), LSU (2009-14) and Texas A&M since 2015.

Here’s some interesting defensive ranking numbers:

• Three Top 5 defenses (one at Tennessee, two at LSU)

• Seven Top 10 defenses (four with the Vols, three at LSU)

• A total of 15 of his defenses ranked in the Top 25

As many of the Great Unwashed in Razorback Nation point to the fact that none of those were at Texas A&M, consider the circumstances, as one longtime coach told me Thursday.

While Chavis certainly had some great individual performers with the Aggies, the recruiting during his first two years there was focused primarily on the offensive side of the ball.

In 2016, Chavis’ second year at A&M, the Aggies signed just six on the defensive side of the ball. They signed 15 on offense.

Under Kevin Sumlin, A&M’s focus was primarily on the offensive side of the ball. He did sign nine quarterbacks during his six years, including six while Chavis was in College Station.

But even at Texas A&M, his defenses were considerably better than what Arkansas had the last three years, averaging eighth in the SEC. The Hogs’ average finish was at No. 11.

There could be massive improvement in the first year, but expecting something similar to what Larry Grantham did in one year at Mississippi State might be a little much.

He inherited a defense that finished tied for 108th in the nation (tied for 12th in the league) and shot up to No. 9 in the nation this past season.

Can Chavis accomplish that? Probably not, but it is possible.

Remember, Morris is not using the Nick Saban blueprint to redo Razorback football. The guess here is he’s going to use the Clemson approach under Dabo Swinney, who didn’t hire Brent Venables until after his third season.

That was right after the Tigers had given up 70 points to West Virginia in the Orange Bowl. That defense was No. 100 in the nation.

Remember that number because we’ll finish with it.

Venables took the Tigers to No. 74 in his first season, then 29th and led the nation in defense in 2014, his third at Clemson.

Chavis could see a jump like that in his first season. After all, the Hogs finished 74th in Robb Smith’s last season which was, basically two second-half meltdowns away from being a nine-win team.

Now back to that number we said we’d finish with. Morris has said on more than one occasion he thinks Arkansas is where Clemson was when he went there in 2011. He was the offensive coordinator when the Tigers’ defense finished, well, No. 100 in the nation.

Just like the Hogs.

He’s reportedly going to bring in Chavis, who many considered the best defensive coordinator in college football just a couple of years ago.

Now we see if he can get to that level again.

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