Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino just spoke to us for the final time before Saturday’s game in Arlington.

No big news, but a couple of things worth mentioning:

• Petrino was asked about the defensive back shakeup and said there hasn’t really been one. Elton Ford and Tramain Thomas have split reps at safety this week after splitting time last Saturday. He said both will play Saturday, but did not name a starter.

• Tackle DeMarcus Love practiced again Thursday after missing Tuesday’s workout. Petrino said he skipped Tuesday because his knee swelled up on him after hurting it at ‘Bama. Love didn’t miss time in that game and should be ready Saturday, Petrino said.

• The Razorbacks will go to Texas a little earlier than usual to make sure they get a walk-through in at Cowboys Stadium. Petrino said it’s a little different routine. He usually likes to get the work done in Fayetteville. But we all know Jerry World is going to be a unique environment so the Razorbacks want the shock value to go away with a walk-through. Petrino said the “super jumbotron” might even be turned on Friday.

• Petrino was asked about the team’s work this week and said it’s been good. He was particularly impressed with the attitude of his players, saying they’ve done a good job of encouraging each other. “That shows pride and that shows that they really want to get this thing right,” he said.

That’s about it for now. Make sure you check out RazorbackCentral.com for more on the game tomorrow. And we’ll always have some good stuff here on the Hog Blog. Once again, I’ll be cleaning out my notebook with all kinds of final news and notes tomorrow.

  Thursday morning proved to be one of the more eventful and definitely the most physical practice Arkansas has had this preseason, though it wasn’t what coach Bobby Petrino had hoped to see. And here’s why:

  • Wide receiver Lucas Miller suffered an apparent right shoulder injury early in practice when he dove to make a catch. As he landed on the field inside Arkansas’ indoor practice facility, it appeared that Miller drove his shoulder into the ground. He stayed down for several minutes, screaming in pain before he was helped off the field. He didn’t return to practice, and the extent of the injury isn’t known. But it didn’t look good.

  • The practice only got more physical. Two fights broke during a spirited goal-line drill that pit the offense versus the defense. The first skirmish was minor, but the second one started when offensive tackle DeMarcus Love and defensive end Tenarius “Tank” Wright ignored Petrino’s repeated whistling and threw punches at each other. The fight grew and continued for several moments until all the individuals involved were pulled a part.

  Upset with the fighting, Petrino yelled at his team and made them run sprints for a few minutes. Love and Wright, meanwhile, were forced to spend the rest of practice pushing rocks, doing crunches and taking part in other conditioning exercises. Oddly, they did these exercises while standing or sitting next to each other on the sideline.

  • Now on to something a bit more upbeat. Arkansas has a new running back on its roster, though he’s wearing an old number. Freshman Garry Grace is an invited walk-on who has joined the team and took part in his first practice Thursday morning. Grace played at the same high school in Alpharetta, Ga., as safety Elton Ford. Grace was wearing No. 42, which came open when tailback Adrian Moore decided to transfer.

  Coincidentally, Moore’s departure freed up a spot on the 105-man roster for Grace, who was recently cleared to play. He spent his first practice in shorts, doing conditioning work separate from the rest of the team.

  Arkansas practices again later today. We’ll have more on Miller’s injury, and hopefully the tempers cool down. But this is football practice after all.

  The past two days have not been good to the Razorbacks. Injuries are beginning to add up, and it has been apparent that several offensive playmakers aren’t at practice.

  I posted a blog earlier about tight end Chris Gragg suffering a likely season-ending ankle injury during Wednesday morning’s practice, but there was some other news to come out of the 2 1/2-hour session. Here is what we learned:

  • For starters, we saw a scene early in practice that I can’t recall seeing before. Safety Elton Ford, who’s returning from cracked vertebrae in his neck, had a scary moment when he went down after colliding with a wide receiver during a pass play in 7-on-7 drills. He took off his helmet, and an Arkansas athletic trainer came out to check on him.

  Here is where it got unusual.

  When Ford stood and walked off the field, a number of players began clapping for him. It’s not often that players clap for one of their teammates, even when one of them gets up after an injury. Ford walked to the sidelines, had a trainer check his neck, and after a few minutes, he returned to practice. He participated in 11-on-11 drills, so he appeared to be fine.

  • Not every Arkansas player, however, was able to come back from an injury. As I mentioned in the previous blog on Gragg, tight end D.J. Williams continued to miss practice with a minor ankle injury. Meanwhile, wide receiver Lucas Miller (knee), offensive tackle DeMarcus Love and offensive guard Grant Cook (knee) were held out of practice.

  • There was some bright spots from practice. In fact, Arkansas spent the last part of practice going through a short full-contact scrimmage. The offense got the best of the defense, and quarterback Ryan Mallett looked good under center. He found freshman wide receiver Cobi Hamilton, who had beaten cornerback Isaac Madison on a deep pass. Hamilton was ruled down at the 1-yard line, though Mallett said it should have been a touchdown.

  Later, Mallett connected with wide receiver Jarius Wright on a 32-yard touchdown pass.

  Second-team quarterback Tyler Wilson drove the offense downfield as well. He found tight end Joseph Henry on a 17-yard touchdown pass, and on the next series, he handed the ball off three straight time to running back Broderick Green. Green gained 40 yards on the first two carries before breaking off a 25-yard score that looked way too easy.

  There was more from practice, but this was just the Cliffnotes version. Check out the blog later today or The Morning News on Thursday for more.

Arkansas’ offensive line took a hit today when tackle DeMarcus Love suffered a knee injury in the morning practice and guard Grant Cook went down with a sore knee in the afternoon workout.

Offensive line coach Mike Summers said Cook’s injury isn’t severe and he was actually cleared to rejoin practice at the end of the day. Love’s status is unknown, but it was enough to keep him off the field.

Either way, watching two starters writhing in pain on the ground is something no coach wants to experience in the preseason. But if there is a bright side to the injuries it’s this: Arkansas believes it has more depth up front this season and it got to test some of those second-team guys today.

JUCO transfer Zhamal Thomas filled in for Cook at guard, while redshirt freshman Matt Hall is working in Love’s place at tackle. Summers said those two filled in pretty well considering.

“They did good,” Summers said. “They made mistakes from time to time which you can’t do up front or it shows up really big. I’m encouraged that we’ve got some depth in the offensive line. We can put some guys in there and feel good they can go in and do the job.”

Thomas and Hall are part of a pretty impressive looking group of backup players. In addition, massive freshman tackle Anthony Oden is working on the second team line. So is freshman guard Alvin Bailey, a 17-year old who surprised veterans when he bench pressed 415 pounds before camp.

“All of those young guys are eager to be in there,” Summers said. “They’re trying to learn the technique in the offense, which, at times, doesn’t look good. But they’re running hard and I’m pleased with all of those guys. They’re good football players.”

Of course, Arkansas hopes to see Love and Cook back on the field soon. But there appears to be more options this season for the offensive line if and when someone goes down with an injury.

There’s roughly 45 minutes until kickoff, but we have some injury news we can share.

Defensive end Adrian Davis, offensive tackle Ray Dominguez and offensive guard Grant Cook are all sitting on the bench right now in their jerseys, watching the Razorbacks warm up. Those three, it appears, won’t be available for today’s game. Unless they’re pulling an elaborate trick on Tulsa. Maybe that’s it.

Look for Damario Ambrose to start at defensive end, Grant Freeman to start at tackle and DeMarcus Love to start at guard. In addition, Rashaad Johnson will likely start at free safety in place of Elton Ford, who is out with a neck injury.

We’ll see how much the missing players affect the Razorbacks today.

Arkansas wrapped up another Wednesday practice, so I thought I’d throw a few tidbits on the blog before heading home to watch the presidential debate.

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said there is a chance that nose tackle Ernest Mitchell could play Saturday at Kentucky. Mitchell underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee earlier this month, but the senior could return sooner than expected after practicing the past two days.

Arkansas defensive tackles coach Bobby Allen said Wednesday that Mitchell will hopefully play next week against Ole Miss if he can’t go Saturday in Lexington.

Other than that, there wasn’t much news. Offensive guard DeMarcus Love was working with the first-team offense at the first part of practice, but Petrino said he expects Grant Cook to get the start.

Well, that’s it for now. Time to finish work, so I can catch Round 3 of Obama/McCain.

The pregame Q&A is going to be replaced with the abbreviated pregame blog today.

Let’s just say we’re having a little computer trouble. The pregame Q&A that I just spent 20 minutes working on is now out there floating in cyberspace. So before we get going, here are a couple quick notes:

• One significant lineup change for the Razorbacks today: Defensive end Damario Ambrose will be starting in place of Adrian Davis today. No word on why the change has been made. Davis is here in uniform, though.

• Grant Cook will start his second game at strong guard in place of DeMarcus Love (ankle). At tackle, Ray Dominguez is back in his starting spot after missing last week’s game.

• We don’t know who is starting at quarterback for the Tigers yet. It has been listed as a “game-time decision.” Chris Todd did take the first snaps in warmups, while Kodi Burns was second. We’ll see soon.

We just got done watching the first 20 minutes of practice and there were a couple of noteworthy things:

• Defensive tackle Ernest Mitchell was in uniform and working to rehabilitate his left knee. Mitchell was injured against Texas and underwent surgery last Wednesday. So less than a week later, Mitchell is out there at least beginning the rehabilitation process. That could be good news for the Razorbacks down the road.

• Offensive linemen DeMarcus Love and Ray Dominguez were both out there as well. Neither looked like they were working with the first-team unit, though. Grant Cook (guard) and Grant Freeman (tackle) continued to work with the starters after playing against the Gators. Love went down with an ankle injury in practice last week and Dominguez left the team to be with his sick grandmother. Bobby Petrino said yesterday that he expects Cook to start and said there could be a battle between Freeman and Dominguez.

After some waiting around, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino and several players wrapped up their weekly Monday news conference not too long ago.

Here are a few tidbits before I begin writing an article for tomorrow:

Petrino said cornerback Jerell Norton could be out for an extended period of time after re-injuring his hamstring injury in practice last week. Norton was Arkansas’ primary punt returner as well as a backup cornerback, but he has been sidelined at times over the past few months because of hernia surgery and the hamstring injury.

Petrino said it’s uncertain when offensive tackle Michael Aguirre will return to the lineup after he sprained his knee and ankle when the entire pile fell on him during the first play of last Saturday’s 38-7 loss to then-No. 12 Florida. Aguirre started at offensive tackle because Ray Dominguez left to visit his sick grandmother, but Petrino said Dominguez has returned to the team.

Meanwhile, Petrino indicated that offensive guard Grant Cook, who filled in for an injured DeMarcus Love last week, will get his second consecutive start at No. 20 Auburn on Saturday.

Arkansas defensive end Adrian Davis had a few interesting things to say, particularly that he could tell by his teammates’ body language that they thought they were going to lose to Florida, even when the score was 17-7 heading into the fourth quarter. Davis said some players had their heads down, never a good sign for a team hoping to pull off an upset.

That’s it for now. Time to start writing.