Arkansas adjusting to camp

FAYETTEVILLE — This isn't your granddaddy's college football camp.

It's not your dad's fall training camp, or even your oldest son's. It's not even last year's college camp.

This camp has a feel all its own, courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.

But at least it's a “camp,” even if the feel is funky.

The Arkansas Razorbacks opened their preseason practices Monday, but they don't resume again until today, a second workout in helmets and shorts before modified pads are added Friday.

It is University of Arkansas coach Sam Pittman's first camp as a major college head coach, and he's all about helping his “blue-collar” Razorbacks get bigger, stronger and tougher day by day.

Pittman said he also wants to get better on a daily basis himself, and he isn't shy about pointing that out.

He and the coaching staff had 40 days before the season opener against Georgia on Sept. 26 to get in 25 practices. They intentionally spaced out the first week with days in between the first three workouts.

“We purposely went three days the first week,” Pittman said. “Again, it's not necessarily what's going on in front of us, but what's happened behind us. We've had almost 20 practices, 20 walkthroughs, before we started camp.

“So we thought that we would be much further along. We probably have, I don't know, 75% of our

offense and defense in, and special teams for that matter. So we thought we’d do a much better job of getting our kids out there and having a full day off for us to get together as a coaching staff, because we’re new too, and make sure we’re doing the things exactly like we want them done and then be able to relay it to our kids on the off day.”

Pittman talked about emphasizing running and pushing the tempo, which particularly affected wide receivers and defensive backs.

“We felt like we could press them a little bit harder because we had a day in between, and we still wanted to be able to give our kids the weekend off because we’re sitting in a 40-day period to get 25 practices,” he said. “We want to be ready, physically and emotionally ready, to play the first game, so we start out a little bit slower than some of the teams across the country.”

Pittman carried around a notepad throughout Monday’s practice, and he made it to each station along the way during unit drills, taking notes.

“I’ll get better every day,” Pittman said. “I have to learn as a head coach how to run a practice exactly how I want. I thought it went well [Monday], but there’s some things that I wrote down that I’d like to change. Not necessarily change, but we had a six-play rack of inside run and that’s too many, so we’re going to change it to four on Wednesday. Just some things that I thought might be best for our football team.”

Where some teams had to curtail walkthroughs or other organized team activities this summer due to coronavirus flare-ups, the Razorbacks managed to keep to the schedule of activities allowed by the NCAA despite a few positive COVID-19 tests and some quarantining.

“The team is coming along really good,” senior tailback Rakeem Boyd said. “We’ve been practicing more than any other team in the SEC, I think. We really haven’t taken any time off, so it’s been a constant pace of just working, working, working, and I see progress. We’re a step ahead of last year already, you know what I mean?”

Boyd and junior linebacker Bumper Pool appeared separately on a video conference with the media Monday.

While Pittman was freely talking about the improvements he knows he can make as a head coach, the players were seeing another side to his first-day presentation.

“We can’t tell he’s never been a head coach,” Pool said. “He’s running around there and it looks amazing. I’m so proud we get to play underneath him.

“He has this mindset of who cares what happens, who cares what’s thrown in front of us. Let’s keep that same mindset of work today, and when tomorrow comes we’ll attack it.”

Pittman got a laugh out of a reporter asking him who scored touchdowns, who had big plays and could he give a “play by play” of the first practice.

“I mean, we didn’t have any pads on,” Pittman said, clearly amused. “They were going full speed as far as they could. They were taking care of each other. I don’t know that there were really any standouts today from practice.”

Later, Pool said safety Joe Foucha had an interception for the starting defense, and defensive back Jerry Jacobs provided a key pass break-up during a late two-minute drill.

Both players said Pittman keeps the vibe as positive as can be, and the head coach himself had a blast with his first practice as the head Hog.

“As far as being the head coach at Arkansas and going out there to a practice, it was everything I thought it would be,” Pittman said. “Who made that happen is our assistant coaches, our team. I mean, they worked, and we just keep preaching we’re a blue-collar team, we’re the Arkansas Razorbacks, let’s go work hard and play smart. They did that today. I was proud of them and I was really honored to be out there with them.”