In-state recruits shine in opener

lot of time against CSU this week. The good news is that it appears Pool is a more than adequate backup.

5. PAD LEVEL — It’s got to improve in Week Two. The Hogs did not have the proper pad level in the opener.

I’ve seen it for as long as I’ve been covering football: The pad level is generally not there for the opener.

This is not going to be a great offensive line, but it can play with better pad level than displayed in the opener. They didn’t get enough push and the running game suffered. The Hogs averaged just 2.2 yards per snap.

I give Morris credit for getting right to it on Monday when giving the critique of the running game. He said, “We were too high, too soft.”

Morris wants toughness. He is good at the bells and whistles, but it won’t matter how well he draws up the plays if the Hogs don’t correct the pad level.

They say you make the most improvement between the first and second game. That’s where the Hogs need it the most, pad level.

6. BELLS AND WHISTLES — I predicted the Hogs would be anything but vanilla in the opener. Morris and Craddock have plenty of bells and whistles with their offense and John “Chief” Chavis is known to call blitzes as the team departs the bus.

There really wasn’t anything special about the strategy in the opener. Presumably, if you can’t beat Eastern Illinois with vanilla stuff, you probably are going to struggle in the SEC West.

There were no bells and whistles in the offense. Yes, the passing game was there, but I didn’t see any screens, reverses or jet sweeps. The perimeter stuff will show up sooner or later. Maybe it won’t be needed against the Rams, but I bet there will be more blitzes this week.

7. PUNT GAME — If there was something to fix from the opener, it was probably the punt and punt return game. Jared Cornelius was just fine fair catching the punts, but the Hogs goofed in other areas.

Two different punters were used and neither was a hit. Returning starter Blake Johnson punted four times for a 30.5-yard average. Two were pooch punts used to pin the Panthers deep and there was a 44-yarder. But he had a short punt out of bounds, as did backup punter Reid Bauer on a shanked 25-yarder.

The big goof came when the Hogs gave Eastern Illinois an extra possession when two players wearing No. 1 were on the field at the same time. Cornelius is No. 1 on offense, but so is cornerback Chevin Calloway on defense.

Morris said Calloway is supposed to come off the field on punts, but even so, the Hogs should have caught it when he didn’t leave and called a timeout. It was about the only mess up with substitution. And, the Hogs did not have a pre-snap penalty, generally a problem in openers.

8. THE TURNOVERS — It was good on both sides of the ball in the opener. The Hogs forced six fumbles and recovered five. That was a huge improvement over the last six years when the defense averaged just 8.5 recovered fumbles.

On the other side, there was never a hint of a turnover. Passes were not thrown into coverage and backs appeared to have the ball secured. Winning the turnover battle 5-0 was a big win.

Chavis and Morris both were proud of those numbers on Monday, with Chavis emphasizing that the work on stripping the ball away is something that is featured in every practice. Morris said it’s mentioned before every Tuesday practice that there should be no turnovers by the offense.

Winning the turnover battle is often the difference between a good team and the not so good. It’s usually a sign that fundamentals are stressed. A team that takes care of the ball is generally going to fare well. Does the trend continue?

9. IMPROVEMENT AT RUNNING BACK — The

offensive line catches the heat when the running game sputters, but Morris said the running backs could have hit the holes better. Apparently, there were some creases that were missed in the opener.

This is one of the deepest positions on the field and it should be a strength. It just didn’t look like that in the opener. Colorado State has allowed an average of 228.5 yards in its first two games. That bodes well for an improvement for the Hogs.

One of Morris’ goals for the offense is to count the big plays. The longest run in the opener was 10 yards, two times.

“We call a big play in the running game when we were over 15 yards,” Morris said. “We had zero. We’d like to have four.”

That will be something to count on Saturday. Can the Hogs get four runs over 15 yards?

10. ROAD WINS — Counting big plays is fun when there is a win involved. That’s the only thing that matters this week. It’s never easy to win on the road. Every one of them is sweet.

I recall a September road loss to Rutgers — when I learned how to find Piscataway, N.J. — that ended badly when the Hogs lacked big plays on offense. In fact, they might not have been in the game except for a defensive touchdown and another score on a halfback pass.

That was the first loss of the Bret Bielema era. Rutgers came back from a 24-7 deficit to win 28-24. The common denominator in that game and the one this week is that the Hogs are inexperienced in the offensive line.

The difference this time is that the Rams struggle to play defense. I think there will be more than enough big plays for an Arkansas victory this time.

Oh, and it’s a lot more fun to travel to Fort Collins. There are no trout in Piscataway.

Winning the turnover battle is often the difference between a good team and the not so good. It’s usually a sign that fundamentals are stressed. A team that takes care of the ball is generally going to fare well. Does the trend continue?