Clary, Smothers share similar journey at Razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE — Elementary school future Fayetteville Purple Bulldogs don’t grow up yearning to become next door archrival Springdale Red Bulldogs nor vice-versa.

But as an Arkansas Razorback, it behooves Fayetteville’s Ty Clary following the trail blazed by Springdale’s Mitch Smothers.

Smothers proved a whipped ’Dog can become the ’Dog having his day for Razorbacks years.

That’s Clary’s task with his ongoing UA offensive line career first for Bret Bielema and then Chad Morris mirroring Smother’s offensive line career first for Bobby Petrino, then for Bielema.

Both Smothers and Clary because of paper-thin Arkansas offensive line depth were compelled to play too much too soon.

True freshmen offensive linemen preferably redshirt unless precociously gifted or the line cupboard runs bare.

Bare cupboards bore too much on both.

Smothers, built like the center he would become for Bielema, opened the 2011 season for Petrino’s Razorbacks as the miscast totally inexperienced true freshman starting offensive tackle.

He survived three nonconference victories. Then came Alabama and a SEC-opening 38-14 whipping.

Smothers rolled out with the Tide. He never started again for Petrino and played but three more games that 11-2 season.

Redshirting Smothers became one of the few accomplishments of John L. Smith’s 4-8 2012 season with a preseason nationally No. 5-ranked team floundered post Petrino.

For Bielema, Smothers lettered the next three years. All 26 games for the 7-6 and 8-5 teams of 2014 and 2015 Smothers started at center. Smothers’ senior year he adorned the Rimington Award Watch List.

Clary arrived as an unheralded walk-on to Bielema’s Razorbacks in the summer of 2017. By the 2017 preseason’s end Bielema deemed Clary ahead of his scholarship freshman linemen on a line gaping with vacancies.

Like Smothers in 2011, Clary, then a guard, started the first four games with similar overmatched freshman results. He played just three more 2017 games in reserve.

New coach Morris would have loved redshirting Clary in 2018. He couldn’t. So again overmatched, Clary played every game for the 2-10 Hogs. He started the last 11.

Schooled by the hard knocks, Clary seems third-year coming of age.

Morris and offensive coordinator Joe Craddock see their center improved in all facets from the shotgun snap to weight room strength to making the line’s calls to leading with encouragement and sometimes with admonishment.

“Ty’s had a really good camp, and I expect Ty to really kind of push himself over the top this year,” Morris said. “I think this is going to be a big year for him.”

While Morris and Craddock haven’t yet named the season-opening starting quarterback for the team, they assert Clary quarterbacks the offensive line from meetings to the field.

“Ty knows where we’re going and gets us in the right calls and does the things we ask him to do like challenging the guys in the meeting room,” Craddock said. “He’s one of the old guys now and is definitely going to have to be a leader up front.”