Hogs not finished with spring drills
FAYETTEVILLE — While Saturday’s “spring showcase” modified scrimmage felt like a finale of sorts for Arkansas Razorbacks football, it was not.
The University of Arkansas will hold three more practices during the coming week, starting with Tuesday’s spring practice No. 13. The rest of spring drills will take place on either the outdoor practice fields or inside the Walker Pavilion as Reynolds Razorback Stadium is being arranged to accommodate the Garth Brooks concert set for Saturday night.
The practices will be closed to the public and media and the team will not hold interview sessions during the week.
Senior linebacker Bumper Pool, who will chase the school’s career tackles record this fall, said the linebackers and the defense are “exactly where we need to be” following Saturday’s scrimmage.
Pool noted the veteran presence through every level on the defense.
“I think it makes everyone a little bit more calm,” he said. “I think before the play you look around and see guys that have actually been in the fire it just makes everyone settle into their responsibilities and I think when that happens you have guys playing a lot faster because you know exactly where your help is, where your lever point is and it’s been so much fun. I’m glad we had we a good showing for y’all today.”
The Razorbacks have donned full pads minimally during the spring, one of the perks of having a veteran team that knows how to practice and “thud” hard and physical and doesn’t need as much live tackling.
Third-year Coach Sam Pittman described how the last three workouts will look.
“Tuesday will be a regular Tuesday. It’ll be situational thud,” Pittman said of a workout slated to run about 110 minutes. “Thursday will be a spider [light pads] workout again.”
On Saturday, the veterans will do individual drills and engage in run-game work and some one-on-one passing game reps with quarterbacks, wideouts and defensive backs and offensive and defensive lines.
The third teamers will have another bout of scrimmaging that will highlight practice No. 15 and conclude spring drills.
Quarterback KJ Jefferson said emerging from spring as a healthy team is a key goal of the coming week.
“Everybody coming out healthy and just making sure everybody is still in their playbook,” Jefferson said. “When we come back, we don’t want to have any setbacks. We want to hit the ground running and just attacking. We’re executing and chasing perfection, basically. The main thing out of these three practices, we want to come and just remain healthy.”
Tight end Trey Knox, who missed the middle portion of spring drills after suffering a concussion, is still picking up the nuances of the position to which he switched mid-season last year.
“I want to touch up on working on technique,” Knox said. “I feel like that's the biggest thing. Coming out healthy and just working on, especially for myself, working on footsteps and blocking, shooting my hands and getting good hand placement and just cleaning up my technique.
“It can always be cleaned up and always be tweaked to make you a better player.”
Safety Jalen Catalon said “little details” are among the things on his agenda the last three practices.
“As far as our group, as a whole, we're going to work on the main things from the scrimmage they want me to work on, whether it's man coverage or getting off blocks or anything like that we'll work on,” Catalon said. “But, I think so far, I think everybody's been doing a great job of focusing on details and just trying to get one percent better every day. I think it's shown every single practice. You can see improvements by everybody.
“For me, I just want to keep on leading and keep being that guy for the room. At the same time, work on anything personally I have to work on and just keep getting better.”
Pittman cited defensive tackle Isaiah Nichols as one of the players who had a good scrimmage on Saturday as the senior begins to wind up his spring session.
Nichols said he's been working on strengthening his footwork and blasting through blocks.
“The past couple of weeks I've been making sure when we take slant stuff into the zone or they're zoning stuff I've overstepped and [am] getting out of my gap,” Nichols said. “I've got to get vertical. Just being consistent with my hands. Flying off the ball being violent. Block destruction. Just the details and everything. Just trying to fly into everything. Just trying to be the most explosive player I can be.”