Page 4 - 2018 Arkansas Football

4K Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Sunday, August 26, 2018
ARKANSAS PREVIEW
Everything’s new again
Razorbacks prepare with different vibe under Morris
TOM MURPHY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
FAYETTEVILLE — “New” doesn’t do justice to describe the changes for the University of Arkansas football program in 2018, starting with Coach Chad Morris.
Let’s detail the freshness.
Hunter Yurachek, hired after his prede- cessor Jeff Long entangled the department in costly financial commitments and lost the backing of UA officials, is new in the athletic director’s chair.
Morris, a first-time Power 5 head coach, hired an on-field staff consisting of eight new assistants to pair with holdovers Barry Lunney Jr. and John Scott. Strength and conditioning coach Trumain Carroll, head athletic trainer Dave Polanski and dozens of auxiliary staff members are first-time Razorbacks.
The Hogs will open the season at Reynolds Razorback Stadium on Saturday against Eastern Illinois with a redesigned and expanded north end zone sitting atop refurbished Frank Broyles Athletic Center. Video boards will adorn both the south and north end zones.
While many of the Razorbacks’ position players are returning veterans, a large focus will be on the new starter at quarterback. Either sophomore Cole Kelley, a four-game starter last year; junior Ty Storey; or one of three freshmen will take the reins at quar- terback in the first serious competition for the job in a dozen years, following the chain of undisputed starters Ryan Mallett, Tyler Wilson, Brandon Allen and Austin Allen.
Newness abounds in the program for good reason. The Razorbacks went 4-8 last season, including 1-7 in the SEC for the pro- gram’s fifth lower-tier finish in the past six years.
Morris’ term for the team — from his first meeting with the returning players right into training camp — has been “hun- gry.”
“I know the disappointment from last season and all that has just been in that rear-view mirror, so to speak, to remind them, but they’re hungry,” Morris said heading into spring drills.
In Atlanta at SEC football media days, when asked about the likelihood the Ra- zorbacks would be picked to finish last in the SEC West, Morris said this: “One thing, as I shared with our players, because we
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Arkansas junior tight end Austin Cantrell said he wants to be a part of the Razorbacks’ turn- around. “I want to be a part of something big,” he said. “That’s my goal. Not just be a part of it but to be one of the guys that helps lead it."
ert and punter Blake Johnson.
Offensive coordinator Joe Craddock will
run Morris’ Spread system.
“I think you’d say we’re a two-back,
run-oriented, play-action shot football team,” Morris said. “It’s who we are. We’re going to run the football. We want to run the football and take shots down the field.”
John Chavis, a 23-year SEC defensive coordinator and winner of the 2011 Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in college football, is known for being a high-pressure tactician who tries to force quarterbacks into quick decisions.
The new quarterback, who might not be fully established until Week 2 at Colo- rado State, will work behind a line that had four returning starters prior to left tackle Colton Jackson’s back surgery in July. John- ny Gibson and Brian Wallace look solid on the right side, with senior Hjalte Fro- holdt leading the way at either left guard — where he’s started the past two seasons — or center — where he moved in the first full week of camp.
Defensive line convert Austin Capps and some combination of younger players among Dalton Wagner, Shane Clenin, Ty Clary, Kirby Adcock, Noah Gatlin and Silas Robinson are expected to win playing time on the left side.
The Razorbacks appear loaded at running back, with juniors Whaley and T.J. Hammonds, sophomore Hayden and freshman Maleek Williams supplement- ed by junior-college transfer Rakeem Boyd, a former three-star signee at Texas A&M.
The same could be said for a veteran tight end room, headed by senior Jeremy Patton, juniors Cantrell and Cheyenne O’Grady, and sophomore Grayson Gunter. Patton suffered a bruised ankle during the second week of camp, but he’s expected back in about a week.
The receivers, led by senior Jared Cor- nelius, have a lot of potential contributors but few proven aces. Jonathan Nance is the leading returner after catching 37 passes for 539 yards and 5 touchdowns last season.
La’Michael Pettway seems primed for a big junior season. Jordan Jones and Deon Stewart each had more than 400 receiv- ing yards in 2017, but their playing time with the top units in camp was seemingly matched by Gary Cross, De’Vion Warren,
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have heard it, and our players have heard it. You can’t help but not to hear it. It’s how hungry is this football team going to be because of it.
“And we’ve got a lot of returning start- ers, a lot of returning lettermen, that ex- perienced the season that they had last year. And I’ve said it before that 4-8 is not acceptable. It’s not acceptable whoever the coach is.”
The Arkansas players understand ex- pectations outside the team are low.
“I feel like we’re slept on,” junior defen- sive lineman McTelvin Agim said. “I feel like we’re paying for past mistakes. I mean, it’s evident. But it is what it is. You make your bed, you’ve got to lay in it. We made that bed last year, so now we’ve got to just climb up out of it.”
Junior tailback Devwah Whaley said winning games is what motivates the Hogs. “Nobody’s picking us to win a [confer- ence] game, and we just want to go out there and prove people wrong. So at the end of the day it’s not about what I want,
it’s about what I want for the team,” he said. “I can just tell everybody’s a lot more hungry this year,” sophomore tailback Chase Hayden said. “Last year — at leasttomeasanewguycomingin—it seemed like everybody was kind of con- tent. We assumed that we were going to go out there and probably win seven or
eight games.”
Junior tight end Austin Cantrell red-
shirted during the high-water mark of the Bret Bielema era, an 8-5 record in 2015 that included a 5-3 finish in the SEC with two nail-biter conference losses. He said he’d like to be an integral part of the Arkansas team that turned things around.
“I want to be a part of something big,” Cantrell said. “That’s my goal. Not just be apartofitbuttobeoneoftheguysthat helps lead it. That’s one of my biggest goals right now.”
The Razorbacks bring back one of the more veteran teams in the SEC with nine returning starters on both sides of the ball, and two specialists in kicker Connor Limp-