O’Gara on Nix may be ready to break out in QB battle with Morris gone
Chad Morris is gone from Auburn and history says that means Bo Nix could have huge year as Connor O’Gara and Halftime crew discussed on ESPN Arkansas on Monday afternoon.
Pittman on welcoming host of new players moving in over weekend
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman talked Monday morning on The Morning Rush at Lost Springs in Rogers about new players coming in and more.
Briles, Odom at Lost Springs on how far ahead of last year Hogs are
Last year, new Razorback coaches Kendal Briles and Barry Odom didn’t get started until June and it’s different with spring drills.
They talked about that from Lost Springs Country Club in Rogers for the Arkansas Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries Golf Classic and who’s the better golfer on The Morning Rush with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft.
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast: Hogs sweep Gators
Tye and Tommy are LIVE today at Lost Springs Country Club in Rogers for the Arkansas Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries Golf Classic.
The guys recap the Hogs’ domination over the Gators, their initial thoughts on the SEC Tournament this week, plus hear from Sam Pittman, Kendal Briles, and Barry Odom, who are all participating in the Golf Classic!
Burks is 17th on Kiper’s Top 25 rankings, not in McShay’s first round
We’re not to what former Florida (and South Carolina) coach Steve Spurrier called “talking season,” but it’s not too early for listings.
In college football, there’s a list that usually involves some sort of subjective analysis for just about everything and ESPN’s Mel Kiper has his early list of the top 25 players for this season.
Arkansas junior Treylon Burks is ranked No. 17. It goes without saying no player from Warren has ever been ranked that high at any point in time of any sort of pro football ranking system.
Here’s what Kiper had to say about Burks:
A big receiver with good speed who has played almost exclusively out of the slot in two seasons for the Razorbacks. Of his 51 catches last season, 38 came when he was lined up in the slot, and all seven of his touchdowns were from the slot. I want to see Arkansas diversify Burks’ routes and give him more shots on deep balls. He’s a fun player to watch.
In other rankings, ESPN’s Todd McShay has his first round mock draft for 2022 and Burks is not one of the two wide receivers from the SEC he projects in the first round.
All rookie contracts are fixed by collective bargaining with the players association and this past draft saw first round contracts drop dramatically after Trevor Lawrence’s $36.8 million deal ($24.2 million signing bonus).
The last pick in the first round was $11.2 million in contract value with a $5.5 million signing bonus.
Draft choices in 2022 will see a slight increase and while the salary cap is expected to increase most of that money will not go into the rookie pool that is fixed by the league and the players’ association.
In case you’re wondering, the disparity between Kiper’s ratings and McShay’s draft is nothing new. None of the major mock drafts have Burks being picked in the first round right now.
Nobody gets it right every year, players drop out and new ones come in so don’t get too worked up over this.
Webb arrested for public intoxication Saturday night on Dickson
Apparently fans weren’t the only ones celebrating Arkansas’ series sweep over Florida this past weekend as outfielder Braydon Webb got arrested at closing time.
Police reported that Webb was arrested near Yancey’s hot dog stand on Dickson Street just after 2 a.m., according to a story Sunday at NWAHomePage.com.
Reportedly Webb tried to cut in line, then got mad, pushed a table and broke a mobile credit card reader and owner Cody Yancey popped him, then tried to hold him for the cops.
Webb was arrested and booked at Washington County jail on a public intoxication charge before being released on a $200 bond just after 8:30 Sunday morning with a June 24 court date.
Webb was released from jail on a $200 bond just after 8:30 Sunday morning. His court date is scheduled for June 24th.
“We are aware of the incident involving Braydon Webb and are gathering information from the proper authorities,” Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn said in a released statement. “We will make a determination regarding his status once we have reviewed all of the information.”
In other words, Webb has a rather uncomfortable meeting that has either happened or will happen with Van Horn.
Webb started 22 games this season and had a .179 batting average with five homers and 11 RBI.
Deifel on Hogs’ experience helping them down Stanford to advance
Arkansas’ getting to Super Regional experience before played a big role in getting there for the second time with Sunday’s 7-3 win.
Razorbacks beat Cardinal to advance to Super Regional
Arkansas advanced to super regionals for the second time in program history by defeated Stanford, 7-3, in the Regional final Sunday evening.
The Razorbacks (42-9) will host their first home super regional in program history next weekend against either Arizona or Ole Miss.
How it happened
Outfielder Hannah McEwen walked to lead off the game, setting up infielder Braxton Burnside to jolt her 25th home run of the season to dead center, giving the Hogs a 2-0 lead.
Stanford responded immediately in the bottom of the frame and took advantage of an error to put runners on first and second with one out.
Emily Young singled off pitcher Autumn Storms’ leg and the ricochet allowed one run to score. Emily Schultz blooped a double to left to tie the game, and the Cardinal went ahead 3-2 on Sydnee Huff’s single to center, but Ryan Jackson cut a run down at the plate with an on-target throw.
The Razorbacks scored five unanswered runs in the fourth and fifth to close out the game. Outfielder Ryan Jackson singled in a run and infielder Keely Huffine drove another home on a fielder’s choice in the fourth to go up, 4-3.
Designated player Linnie Malkin gave the Hogs some cushion in the fifth, hammering a three-run home run to center, her 18th of the season, to go up 7-3.
Storms went 1.0 inning inside the circle, before Mary Haff (26-6) entered from the bullpen and did not allow a run in 6.0 innings. She allowed just five hits with three strikeouts.
Both teams collected nine hits and infielder Hannah Gammill led the team with two hits.
Up next
Arkansas awaits the winner of the Tucson Regional and will play at Bogle Park next weekend against an opponent and times to be determined.
Haff was ready to go in all day, but came into game against Stanford early
Hogs pitcher Mary Haff said she was prepared to pitch in relief today, but when Autumn Storms was injured it got her into game earlier than expected.
Hogs not taking foot off gas heading to SEC Tournament next week
A letdown for Arkansas on Saturday would have just gotten a shrug from most fans, but it turned into a full-blown Baum-Walker party.
The Razorbacks, after clinching the SEC regular season title Friday night, proceeded to stomp Florida into submission, 9-3, to complete a sweep of the final series.
“We’re not going backwards,” was what Dave Van Horn said later about the Hogs peaking at the right time.
Now it’s on to Hoover for a completely meaningless SEC Tournament. The Hogs will probably be the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament regardless of what happens next week.
This time Brady Slavens’ bat came up big. He hammered a pair of home runs for five RBI. The rest of the runs were scattered and Charlie Welch delivered … again. His pinch-hit double in a wild seventh inning broke open a close game.
And let the party get started in front of another full house that really got rolling when the outcome became obvious in the seventh inning. Nobody was going home early.
Part of that is a year without much fan involvement in games due to the covid restrictions.
Maybe the biggest part of, though, is this Razorback team resembles a machine not even running at full throttle headed into the final part.
This team is different.
“That’s the way this team is,” Van Horn said with a big smile. “It’s their personality. I’ve said it the last two months. When these guys step on the field they want to win.”
There really wasn’t any particular reason to push it Saturday. The league title had been secured Friday night. With the exception of some pitchers who weren’t even active for Saturday’s game, everybody else played like nothing had been decided.
“There were no motivation speeches about playing hard and let’s go ahead and win this,” Van Horn said. “It’s the little things. We just talked about how to beat those guys over there. We just showed up and got after ’em.”
It’s the one game at a time approach we’ve talked about this weekend because there is a bigger goal than every one of these games. They keep getting better.
“You get better until you get tired,” Van Horn said.
Which may offer some clues into the real mastery of what Van Horn does.
“I don’t think we’re tired,” he said.
For Razorback fans, that’s a big cause for hope to get to Omaha and win it all.
Right now they look like it’s a real possibility.
