Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Not standing pat
Veteran LBs unsatisfied with 2020 progress
FAYETTEVILLE — Staying static is no place to be on a football field.
You’re either improving or losing ground, football coaches like to say, and the University of Arkansas linebackers are eager to be in the former group.
The UA linebackers return intact in 2021, thanks to the NCAA’s decision to grant an extra year of eligibility due to covid-19 and the decisions by Grant Morgan, Hayden Henry and Deon Edwards to take the NCAA up on it.
While the Razorback linebackers made strides in the debut season of Coach Sam Pittman and defensive coordinator Barry Odom, cruising into spring training on those laurels held no appeal.
“It’s the same guys, but it’s … we understand a lot more,” Morgan said. “We feed off each other.”
A dash of new blood has infused the linebacker room, from the oldest to the youngest.
Michael Scherer, one of the youngest assistant coaches in football at age 27, has taken over at the position from Rion Rhoades. Early enrollees Christopher Paul and Marco Avant have joined the group for spring practice.
“We’re working a ton on hands, trying to get off blocks, be physical at the point of attack,” senior Bumper Pool said. “That’s something that we’re going to work on every single day because those are things last year that we struggled with.
“And it’s just so important, especially in the SEC, to be able to have block disruption, so I feel like that’s going to be one of our bigger points of emphasis.”
Morgan, a defensive captain and one of three finalists for the Burlsworth Trophy last year, had a breakout season. The Greenwood native had 111 tackles and led the nation with 12.3 tackles per game.
Morgan has played through two regime changes at Arkansas and four position coaches, from Vernon Hargreaves (2016-17), through John Chavis (2018-19) and Rhoades (2020), and now on to Scherer, who racked up 266 career tackles at Missouri (2013-16).
Pool, who missed one game in 2020 like Morgan, finished second on the team with 101 tackles to go along with 6.5 tackles for loss, 5 pass breakups and a quarterback hurry.
Morgan turned 23 on Jan. 23, so he’s four years and two months younger than Scherer.
“He’s definitely the closest to my age that I’ve had so far,” Morgan said. “We really enjoy Coach Scherer. The way he coaches us is just so intense and we love it.
“He’s making everyone in the room better. He has so much knowledge in this defense and the scheme. The way he coaches us is on a different level because he’s been here recently. He knows what it takes to get to the next league.”
Morgan said Scherer’s words ring older and wiser than his age.
“If you listen to him speak and didn’t see a picture of him, you would not know he was young at all,” Morgan said. “The way he talks about football, his mindset on football, he’s an old-time football guy and he wants us to hit somebody and hit them hard, which is the way it should be played.
“But he’s got new tricks in his bag the way he’s been, on the defensive side, able to develop over time because offenses have.”
Morgan and Pool said Scherer’s hard coaching does not let up on veterans who have been through the battles before.
“He’s been in our shoes, so when we’re in our meetings, whatever we get agitated with, he was in the same seat so he knows not to do those things,” Pool said. “We get to our tape, he’ll rip guys. There’s such a respect between each other because we know he did it at such a high level. And we all want to ultimately get that same success.”
Said Morgan: “He’s fair. He treats every single person the same. He’s going to rip me and Bumper the way he rips everybody else there.
“He’s a type of guy who he doesn’t care what day it is, he doesn’t care if it’s sunny outside, he doesn’t care if it’s pouring rain. He’s going to be the same guy every single day. He’s going to work us. He’s going to demand high effort from us because he knows where we want to be.”
Scherer, speaking on a video conference last month, said he was happy to take over a position group laden with experience.
“It’s awesome to have leaders like Grant and Bumper and Hayden Henry and Dede Edwards coming back as seniors,” he said. “They definitely set the tone for the room. They’re the example for all the guys.
“Obviously being younger and being new to this, it’s good to have them to also be able to hammer those guys into shape because the fact of the matter is they’ve been very successful in what we’ve done. To the younger guys, if they want to be successful, they just look at those guys.”
The Razorbacks are experimenting with widening their defensive ends, a technique new defensive line coach Jermial Ashley had success with at Tulsa, which could also lead to tweaks to the second level of the defense.
“We kind of dabbled with that last year,” Pool said. “We didn’t have it for sure set on what we were doing with them just because we were really multiple last year, but we’ve kind of honed in on doing a certain technique.
“It worked at Tulsa and I think if we can get it done right and get our D-line lined up, it’s going to open up me and Grant and it’s going to be really big for us.”