Former Razorback takes first world title

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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LONDON — An Olympic champion in 2016, former Razorback Omar McLeod showed the world he has no plans to slow down, capturing his first world championships title in the 110-meter hurdles on Monday evening at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

His gold medal was the first for Jamaica at the 2017 IAAF World Championships and was also the first ever for his country in the 110 hurdles.

“Omar deserves this victory,” said 2015 Russian world champion Sergey Shubenkov. “The Jamaican is just too fast.”

The third-fastest hurdler out of the blocks (.123 reaction time), McLeod’s foot speed was no match for Shubenkov and the rest of the field. He crossed the finish line .10 seconds ahead of the 2015 champion and markedly ahead of their fellow competitors.

“This one is special, honestly,” said McLeod. “There was a lot of pressure coming in but I channeled it positively. I had to do it the ‘Omar McLeod’ way. It’s totally different to last year where we had Usain [Bolt] and Elaine [Thompson] winning, which I used to propel me. I didn’t have that this time so I really wanted to come out and shine my own light.”

McLeod may get a chance to win another world gold for Jamaica as a member of the nation’s 4-x-100-meter relay pool with the revered Usain Bolt. The 4-x-100 relay preliminary round will be held on Saturday, Aug. 12 at 4:55 p.m. CT.

In the field, Clive Pullen finished with a best mark of 15.61m/51-2 3/4. He was unable to get on the board during his first two attempts, struggling to find his rhythm after a two month hiatus from competition.

“Clive was ready and excited to compete tonight,” assistant coach Travis Geopfert said. “The big break from competition caused him to struggle a bit technically. He’s of course very disappointed but he’ll pick himself up, brush himself off and will be back to show the world what he can do. That’s simply the type of competitor he is.”

Survive and Advance
NCAA bronze medalist and rising Arkansas senior Kemar Mowatt qualified for the 400-meter hurdle finals with the second-fastest non-automatic qualifying time of 48.66. Mowatt’s section, which featured reigning Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion Kerron Clement, was the fastest of the three.

Mowatt’s performance would have earned him a heat-win in both section two and section three of the 400 hurdles semifinals.

“It was a good race but it wasn’t a perfect race,” said assistant coach Doug Case. “He [Mowatt] ran the first 200 really well with a really fast split. At the end he just clipped that 10th hurdle but he was on his way to a really great race. I think he can contend in the finals. He’s ready to run really, really fast. If his last hurdle is clean, he runs a much better race and I talked to him about that already.”

Up Next
ProHog Stanley Kebenei will look increase the Arkansas men’s track and field 2017 worlds medal count to three, racing the steeplechase finals tomorrow at 3:10 p.m. CT. Kebenei heads into the finals with fifth-fastest time in the event this season.

World championships coverage will begin at 1:30 p.m. CT on NBC Sports. Fans can also follow the live results HERE.

Date: Aug. 4-13
Venue: London Stadium at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Important Link: Meet Central (Schedule, Live Results, IAAF Radio and Athlete Stats)
Broadcast Schedule: NBC (see table below)

Arkansas Entries (12)
• Bahamas – Tamara Myers (Triple Jump)
• Jamaica – Kemoy Campbell (5,000), Omar McLeod (110mH), Kemar Mowatt (400mH) and Clive Pullen (Triple Jump)
• Slovenia – Tina Sutej (Pole Vault)
• Trinidad & Tobago – Sparkle McKnight (400mH)
• USA – Daina Harper (4-x-400m Relay), Andrew Irwin (Pole Vault), Stanley Kebenei (Steeplechase), Jarrion Lawson (Long Jump) and Sandi Morris (Pole Vault)

Arkansas World Championships Medalists (Chronological)
• 1983: Mike Conley (Long Jump – Bronze)
• 1987: Mike Conley (Triple Jump – Silver), Roddie Haley (4-x-400m Relay – Gold)
• 1991: Mike Conley (Triple Jump – Bronze)
• 1993: Mike Conley (Triple Jump – Gold)
• 1997: Erick Walder (Long Jump – Silver)
• 2005: Wallace Spearmon Jr. (200m – Silver)
• 2007: Tyson Gay (100m – Gold, 200m – Gold, 4-x-100m Relay – Gold), Wallace Spearmon Jr. (200m – Bronze, 4-x-100m Relay – Gold)
• 2009: Tyson Gay (100m – Silver), Wallace Spearmon Jr. (200m – Bronze)
• 2017: Jarrion Lawson (Long Jump – Silver), Omar McLeod (110mH – Gold)

Agim on growing up in Texarkana, better defense

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Defensive tackle Sosa Agim met with the media Monday and talked about how the defense will be better and growing up in Texarkana.

Morgan on differences with brother, new defense

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Redshirt freshman Grant Morgan talks about differences with his brother Drew, the new defense and how playing smart helps.

Coley talks about scrimmage, improvement

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Defensive back De’Andre Coley met with the media and talked about his improvement, scrimmage and more.

Punter Blake Johnson on how he’s improved

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Being from California, Johnson talks about differences there and in Arkansas and how he’s not a surfer.

O-Line improvement a must

Derek Ruscin
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FAYETTEVILLE – Training camp scrimmages.  When those of us in the media think we figure everything out and actually don’t learn much about what the upcoming season will hold.

Saturday’s 140+ play scrimmage gave us a few clues as to what the 2017 Razorback football season will hold.  We saw a few dazzling catches some inexperienced (in terms of game action) players like La’Michael Pettway or newcomer Kolian Jackson.

We saw zero shanks on punts and the only missed field goal on the day hit the left upright flush.  To me, that is harder to do then make a field goal, so I call that a good sign in terms of accuracy.

The offensive line is where the season will be decided.  If Kurt Anderson’s group is once again sporting the consistency of gas station toilet paper, the Hogs will not be taking a step forward in the win column and Austin Allen may have precious brain matter deposited on fields around the SEC.

Saturday was up and down.  Some good moments in pass protection but not much going on with the run game.  Austin Allen barely had a clean pocket, in spite of that he only had three incompletions on the day.

Luckily, games that matter are still weeks away so the problems can be corrected.  Will they be?  We find out for sure on September 9 against TCU.

First scrimmage has positives, but no answers

Andy Hodges
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Preseason scrimmages are difficult, at best, to get a read on.

Saturday’s in Fayetteville was no exception.

There were positives. Austin Allen hit 19-of-22 passes, including a 67-yard scoring pass to La’Michael Pettway.

But there was also a drop (by Pettway) and he was working against the second-team defense. Allen wasn’t pressured as often by the second-team offense as Ty Storey was by the first-teamers. The first-team offense just couldn’t avoid tackles for loss on the running backs.

In some ways it was a replay of last season.

That’s scary.

We’ve heard since the spring that the offensive line was going to be better. Some nodded. Others wondered how. In this day and age, maybe one or two players make a measured leap in improvement from one season to the next, but not an entire line.

Not without some fresh faces. The second-team line at times didn’t have time to give a courtesy “Look Out!” holler as the defensive line went past.

Why is that scary? That’s the second team, after all. It’s because you need at least four series a game from your second team linemen on average. Maybe not all at once, but nobody plays every down anymore.

All of the official comments afterwards were positive, which is usually the case. Let’s face it, coaches aren’t going to stand up and tell you anybody was terrible anymore.

Lou Holtz used to be the master of that. You’d think at times in those days the Hogs weren’t going to be able to win a game. Most of the time it was Lou sending a message to his players.

Coaches can’t do that these days.

Negative comments hurt recruiting. Players are different today. Check out the number of players who transfer each year if you don’t believe that. They get ticked off, they transfer to another school.

That’s why you have to take coaches’ comments as something akin to a used car salesman putting the best spin on that 10-year-old Cadillac with 185,000 miles sitting on the lot.

The offensive line, which everyone was counting on to be vastly improved, had some really good moments. But there were almost as many tackles for loss (seven) and sacks (six) as those good plays.

Either the defense is vastly improved or the offensive line still has issues.

There are a couple of ways to look at that.

The hope for fans is the defense is that much better. The reality is they still gave up a lot of big plays and had trouble at times “setting the edge.” That phrase, by the way, is one of the latest rages in college football, along with “run fits,” which sounds like what Paul Rhoads had on a couple of occasions Saturday.

One of those came when freshman Chase Hayden went 74 yards for a score on the first-team defense after he got to “the edge” and then defenders just watched his number get smaller as he ran away from them.

Yes, there were some positives. Some of them included:

• Allen played so well, Bret Bielema held him out of the second half of the scrimmage.

• Pettway’s five catches for 165 yards, but once again showed some inconsistency as he dropped another and had two penalties (a false start where he straddled the line of scrimmage about 10 feet from the line judge trying to get him back and a holding call).

• The first-team offense looked good passing, which is to be expected by a fifth-year senior quarterback against a No. 2 defense.

So, we’re left with the age-old question of how good are the backups the first team is looking good against.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

And won’t know until the second game of the year.

Bielema talks about development of Hogs

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas coach Bret Bielema met with the media following Saturday’s scrimmage and talked about how the team is developing.

Nashville’s La’Michael Pettway on fall camp

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La’Michael Pettway visited with the media Saturday and talked about Arkansas’ offense early in fall camp.

Storey on staying ready as backup quarterback

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Arkansas quarterback Ty Storey talked on media day about staying ready as Austin Allen’s backup for this season.

Cantrell on choosing between Hogs, Sooners

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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In Roland, Oklahoma, Hogs linebacker Austin Cantrell had people pushing Oklahoma in addition to Arkansas to him and he talked about the choice.

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