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Razorbacks look to build off of last year’s momentum vs. Rice.
FAYETTEVILLE — The arrow for University of Arkansas football seems pointed up heading into the 2021 season under second-year Coach Sam Pittman after the Hogs showed significant improvement during a 3-7 run last year.
Full-capacity allowances are back at 76,000-seat Reynolds Razorback Stadium, the roster depth looks improved with 19 starters back, and the schedule has opened back up to allow nonconference games even as covid-19 lurks.
The season starts today at 1 p.m. against former Southwest Conference rival Rice, with UA officials expecting somewhere between 67,000 and 68,000 tickets distributed.
Pittman said he hoped last week’s mock game, also held in the late-morning heat, eliminated any game-day concerns of players.
“I want a confident team that has a chip on their shoulders to show people how hard we’re going to play,” Pittman said on his Wednesday radio show. “We talk about it all the time, and Saturday we’ve got to show it.”
Temperatures are expected to top out in the mid-90s, but they’re expecting to leave happy with the home team listed as a 191/2-point favorite after being an underdog in all 10 games last season and most games the two years prior.
“We really are just worried about how we play,” Pittman said about being a favorite for the first time in his 11th game as the Arkansas head coach. “If we’ll play physical and chase the ball and not make mistakes and are tough and play with a chip, we feel like we’ll play well.”
Pittman began restoring belief in the players last season, and the Razorbacks expect that to improve a notch this year.
“As for Year Two under Coach Pittman, we understand him way more than we did last year and he understands us way more … so we’re excited to be able to step up and be a more confident team in ourselves and each other … and I know he’s more confident in us, too,” senior linebacker Grant Morgan said.
“I’ve been talking about this for the longest,” added senior safety Joe Foucha. “We’re happy what we did last year but we’re not excited. We want more.
“I felt covid messed the timing up. But with the time we had with Coach Pittman I felt we had to have more time to get to know him and get to learn our defense more and just to get to hang around Coach Pittman. We love him and we want to run through a wall for him.”
Rice, which finished 2-3 in Conference USA in 2020, represents the first nonconference opponent for Arkansas since Nov. 9, 2019.
Before the Razorbacks and their fans can proclaim happy days are here again, they have to get beyond the memories of the horror show produced by that game.
Western Kentucky, also a Conference USA member with former Arkansas quarterback Ty Storey directing the offense, was never stopped in the first half and rolled to an easy 45-19 victory on senior day at Razorback Stadium.
Second-year Coach Chad Morris was fired the next day to cap his 4-18 tenure with the Hogs.
The Morris saga also included a 44-17 loss to C-USA’s North Texas, which featured Keegan Brewer’s 90-yard “no fair catch” punt return touchdown and six interceptions by the Mean Green.
Excluding Rice, against whom the Razorbacks own a 35-29-3 series edge, the Hogs are 20-2 against the current Conference USA lineup, so while their recent history against C-USA squads is haunting, it’s a non-factor for the Arkansas players.
“We honestly don’t look in the past at all,” Morgan said. “We don’t care how those games turned out because … we’re focused on ourselves so much right now. Those games were a different football team.
“We might have the same players from that but we’re a different brand of football now. We’re focusing on ourselves right now and we’re focused on Rice just because we know those games can’t affect us right now.”
The Owls present an interesting challenge with 19 starters back, like the Razorbacks, plus one on each side of the ball who missed 2020. Beating No. 15 Marshall 20-0 late last season helped fuel the program through the offseason and into the opener.
“We’ve got a team that really believes in what we’re doing here,” fourth-year Rice Coach Mike Bloomgren said. “They bought in to the process. They understand the whys to a lot of things we do nowadays.”
Pittman and Bloomgren represent a rare matchup of head coaches who were former offensive line coaches. Bloomgren is a Florida State graduate who spent seven years as line coach at Stanford, where he trademarked the term “intellectual brutality” to describe his approach.
“I certainly have a lot of respect for Coach Sam Pittman,” he said. “I’ve followed his career through the years, back when he was a position coach, coaching the offensive line.”
Pittman was equally complimentary.
“I have a lot of respect for him, both as an offensive line coach and a head coach,” Pittman said. “He’s done a really nice job at Rice. They’re coming.”
Quarterback play obviously will be important and intriguing with both teams likely to use their top two signal callers.
Bloomgren has already said he’d play both redshirt sophomore Wiley Green, who is in his fourth year in the system, and Nebraska transfer Luke McCaffrey, who has a huge arm and plus running skills.
KJ Jefferson will make his third career start and his first at home for the Razorbacks, trying to improve on a career completion rate of 48%. Behind him, redshirt freshman Malik Hornsby is one of the fastest players on the roster.
Pittman talked of working on the pocket passer skills and accuracy with Jefferson, also a quality runner, during camp.
“I’ve made a tremendous amount of progress, trying not to use my legs as much,” Jefferson said on “Sam Pittman Live” on Wednesday. “I want to be a pocket passer … training me for that next level, where I can’t just use my legs all the time.
“I can, just to get out of certain situations, but just staying in the pocket, going through my progressions, making the right reads and getting the ball to my playmakers.”
Jefferson said offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kendal Briles now has access to his whole playbook with dual-threat quarterbacks.
Left tackle Myron Cunningham, a captain along with Foucha, Jefferson, Morgan and safety Jalen Catalon, said Jefferson has won the team’s respect.
“In the locker room, he’s funny and always joking and playing around,” Cunningham said. “When we get on that field, it’s all business. I think that’s kind of why people are so behind him on this team, because when it’s business time, he handles his business like a professional.”
Injuries could factor into the game. The Owls lost top defensive tackle De’Braylon Carroll, affecting depth on their front four. Arkansas receiver Treylon Burks is questionable, and defensive back Myles Slusher and defensive tackle John Ridgeway are unlikely to play.