I’m still working on my final story for the week. One that will appear in tomorrow’s paper. But wanted to take a break from putting it together to run through all of the leftover notes, quotes and tidbits. It’s a weekly thing I like to do here on the blog. So let’s get started:
• Saturday’s game is shaping up to be a very interesting battle between head coaches. Arkansas’ Bobby Petrino is regarded as an offensive mastermind, whose team is rolling (especially through the air) this season. Alabama’s Nick Saban, on the other hand, is well-known for his defensive background. And the Crimson Tide has one of the nation’s best defense. It has clearly impressed Petrino this week.
“They’re really good on defense,” Petrino said Thursday. “They have real good players. They have a great scheme. They challenge you. They come up and try not to give you anything easy. They make you earn it. They have great schemes to attack your protections and your pass protection. I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for what they do defensively and what he’s always done defensively.”
• The anchor of ‘Bama’s defense is nose guard Terrence Cody, who has given teams fits the past two years. After all, the guy is a 360-pounder and plugs up the interior. Not an easy thing to deal with. Arkansas guard Mitch Petrus talked about the challenge Tuesday.
“I’ve never played against him, but I know he’s big. I know he can move,” said Petrus, who was ineligible for last year’s game. “We don’t have anybody on the offensive line that’s 360. We’ve got to really make sure we use good technique and come off the ball. … You can’t go in there and get all freaked out and go in there and get scared. You can’t let him dictate where you go. You’ve got to hold him off the best you can.”
• We touched on it a little earlier this week, but defensive coordinator Willy Robinson indicated that S Elton Ford could be ready for playing time this weekend. Ford hasn’t played since his severe neck injury last October and an ankle injury slowed him the past couple of weeks.
But getting Ford back could help a secondary that struggled. Robinson said it has been a long process for Ford, though.
“He’s starting to come back,” Robinson said. “He’s starting to get healthy and he’s starting to put it all together. The mental aspect of it and the assignment aspect of it. We’re bringing him back. The thing is, we’re bringing him back slowly. It’s still a major situation. I think there was a confidence issue with him. Even thought I thought earlier there wasn’t, I think there was.”
• Along the same line, it’s clear Anthony Leon is getting closer and closer to contributing more. Robinson said he played about 30 snaps against Georgia and the Razorbacks want to see him continue to improve. Leon reported to campus later than most incoming players and it has taken time for him to get adjusted to the Razorbacks’ system.
“I think he had over 30 snaps and played pretty decent,” Robinson said. “He had two mental errors at the end of the first half that were kind of costly, but you live to play the next day I guess. He got more production last week than he’s had. So that was good.
“He’s starting to settle down. It’s coming to him. He’s had a really good week of practice.”
• Arkansas freshman LB Terrell Williams was put in a tough spot last week. He replaced Jerry Franklin when the sophomore was ejected. Georgia went right after him, too. Williams made a mistake on the 80-yard touchdown run.
But position coach Reggie Johnson said Williams can learn from the experience, as rough as it was.
“He is a good football player and he’s going to bounce back and he’s going to make some big plays for us this year,” Johnson said. “We’ve just got to get him in the right situations. He’s got to continue to grow and learn in the defense as we go with this thing. Again, he’s going to come back and have some big-time ballgames for us. We’re not down on him by any stretch of the imagination.”
• Arkansas’ defense didn’t play well. We know that. But the Razorbacks weren’t totally discouraged. In fact, I got to talk to DE Adrian Davis about the run defense the other night. Outside of the 80-yard touchdown run, it was good. Georgia had 75 yards on 35 other attempts.
“That 80-yard run hurt,” Davis said. “But we held them other than that. We feel like we’ve got a better defense than what we had last year.”
Arkansas will find out how good it is against the run Saturday, though. ‘Bama is averaging 267.7 rushing yards a game.
• Last week, Georgia WR A.J. Green had a field day against the Hogs. This week, the secondary gets the pleasure of covering Alabama’s Julio Jones. We got a chance to catch up with Matt Harris, who spoke about the challenge Wednesday.
“It’s just the SEC,” Harris said. “Every week we’re expecting a different opponent with another star player. So it’s nothing that we fear.”
Harris was asked to explain the differences between the two receivers: “A.J. Green, I think has a litlte more speed than Julio Jones,” Harris said. “But Julio Jones is a big body guy. He can go up there and run across the middle and make you play.”
• We know Arkansas can throw the ball. But we don’t know if they can sustain success on the ground. Michael Smith’s injury left that a question mark last week, but Smith said he’s ready to go. And he said Arkansas is ready to balance out its attack at ‘Bama.
“We have to,” Smith said. “We don’t want them to just sit back deep and wait on the crossing pass, wait on the deep route. We want to come up every now and then so we can hit the play-action pass or sit back deep and run right down the middle. That’s what we’ve been working on since December, to become a more balanced offense. Now it’s time to start putting it together.”
OK. I think that about does it. I’m going back to writing my story for Saturday’s paper. I’ll check in later today if something newsworthy pops up.
If not, we’ll be bringing you more from Tuscaloosa, Ala., tomorrow. Make sure to check the Hog Blog and follow us on Twitter.
