Hogs to practice before break starts

FAYETTEVILLE — Spring break is on tap for the University of Arkansas campus this week.

But not quite yet for the Razorbacks’ football program, which practices today at the Smith Football Center practice fields as its last workout before the break.

Spring practice No. 7, a closed session for the public, will take place this afternoon, three days after a largely successful scrimmage before a few thousand fans at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.

Coach Sam Pittman was grateful to have a large swatch of the west stands filled with appreciative fans on Saturday.

“We must have had 2,000 or 3,000 people come out to the scrimmage today, and I know that means a

lot to our players and means a lot to our coaching staff,” Pittman said. “We want to thank them.”

Pittman also took a moment on Saturday to congratulate coach Eric Musselman and the Razorback basketball team, which has since advanced to the Sweet 16 on Saturday to face Oral Roberts after eliminating Texas Tech on Sunday.

Pittman said he saw enough good on both sides of the ball in the team's first of three spring scrimmages to be encouraged. He'd like to head into spring break on a positive note.

“We're going to get after it again on Tuesday,” Pittman said. “We're going to try to correct the mistakes that we made in this scrimmage. But Tuesday will be physical.”

Coming out of spring drills with the strong belief the Razorbacks are a better running team and a better run-stopping defense is important to Pittman and coordinators Kendal Briles and Barry Odom.

“We still have to continue to run the ball better,” Pittman said. “The bottom line, good teams, they run the ball when they want to run the ball. I mean, that's what it is. And the good teams stop the run when they want to stop the run, and they take half the game away from people. That's been a big concentration for us.”

The Razorbacks have quite clearly been physical and up-tempo throughout spring to lay the groundwork for being a more aggressive team that can run and hit with its SEC brethren.

“You guys have been out there,” Pittman said. “We're running and two-spotting. … Like, it's a physical practice every day, and it will be again on Tuesday. There won't be a lot of tapering off this spring. But on Tuesday I just want to get what we have corrected and play better fundamentals and be physical, and if we can do that then we will have had a great seven days.”

Pittman noted there were several false starts and defensive offsides penalties on Saturday, and he showed a side of him regarding intrasquad flare-ups that differs from some other coaches who aren't opposed to a little offense vs. defense heat.

When defensive tackle Taurean Carter clearly got hot with an unidentified offensive lineman during the scrimmage and was sent off, Pittman came up a few minutes later and barked to the defensive sideline that he didn't want bickering and harsh words between the units.

“I wish we wouldn't have jumped offsides on defense and stayed on sides on offense,” Pittman said. “And I don't like it when our team talks to each other. I don't like it, so I told them after the scrimmage, ‘If we can just not beat ourselves and make somebody beat us, I think that'll be hard to do if we continue to improve.'”

Pittman said top quarterbacks KJ Jefferson and Malik Hornsby both had to improve at sensing the pass rush and getting out of the pocket or throwing passes away as opposed to taking “touch” sacks as happened seven or eight times in the scrimmage.

However, he was encouraged by the atmosphere and the attitude of the team, who were engaged in a spring scrimmage for the first time under his watch.

“It was a lot of fun,” Pittman said. “What we had to talk about a lot in our staff meeting was we haven't had any of these spring scrimmages. It was new for all of us. We were very meticulous in the way that we went about it, trying to go through it with a fine-tooth comb.

“We knew we were going to have people in the stands. We didn't want to look unorganized out there. We knew we had anywhere from the 1s to the 4s playing and anywhere from 1s to the 4s on punting and kicking.

“To me, that's what spring's for. It's for finding out about the guys you don't know about. It was a lot of fun. I'm very, very — we all are very honored that we had that many people come out and interested in Arkansas football.”