Usually, my notebook is loaded with football leftovers. But this hasn’t been a normal week.

Basketball duty pulled me away from football practice on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Alex Abrams was there for the entire week, but it has left me searching for some leftover stuff worth sharing here on the blog. The good news? I think I found some.

• We all know that Arkansas running back Michael Smith will be a gametime decision before of his hamstring injury. It’s a situation Florida has been keeping track of, apparently. Florida coach Urban Meyer said earlier this week the Gators are paying attention to Smith, especially since he played so well against the Florida defense last season.

“I guess he’s got a little hamstring injury that we’re keeping an eye on because that’s how much respect we have,” Meyer said. “He ripped us apart last year. I’d never really heard of him until we played him, and I saw firsthand a hard guy to tackle, has great acceleration through the hole. They’re a big zone running team, and he’s perfect for it. No, we think he’s one of the top five backs in the league, no question.”

• Remember what Arkansas did with its punt return team last week? The Razorbacks dropped both Jerell Norton and Michael Smith back deep to catch the ball the entire game. Well, I asked John L. Smith about it on Wednesday night and he said it was something the Razorbacks came up with because of what the Tigers did. Auburn’s punter shaded the ball to the side and was getting extra yards on the roll.

“If we can eliminate the 10-, 20- and 15-yard rolls, then that’s going to save us and make us a lot of ground,” Smith said. “I told them our goal this week for us is to not let a ball hit the ground and we did that. Even though it doesn’t show in the stat as a 10-yard return or whatever, it shows up.”

No word on if the Razorbacks will try the same thing Saturday. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

• Arkansas LB Jerico Nelson has gotten plenty of publicity this week. And he deserves it, too, after his performance against Auburn. But there’s another reason for Arkansas’ defensive resurgence the past couple weeks. S Elton Ford has been back in the lineup and playing well. Defensive coordinator Willy Robinson was asked about Ford on Wednesday night.

“I think he’s done a great job tackling,” Robinson said. “There’s still some liability with him in pass coverage. But I think he’s doing a great job of tackling the catch, showing up on the run. He’s starting to stay on his feet when he tackles and great tacklers do do that. They stay on their feet when they tackle. That’s something he’s made great strides in since these last two games as opposed to the last couple of games he played”

• It doesn’t really need to be said that Robinson and the Razorbacks have plenty of respect for Florida QB Tim Tebow. Who doesn’t, right? Well, here’s what Robinson had to say about Tebow and the way he leads the Gators’ offense even after the concussion.

“He runs that offense and he loves being the leader of that offense,” Robinson said. “So regardless of his injury or what it once was, he’s still going to be that competitor. So even though they might say, handoff, or be cautious here, that’s not part of his nature. His nature is to compete and compete and compete until the final bell.”

• Arkansas WR Greg Childs has really played well this season. His performance against Auburn was even more important because the Razorbacks were without Joe Adams and Jarius Wright. Childs will be needed once again against Florida. Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino explained how much confidence Childs has and how important he will be against the Gators.

“Childs right now, he’s begging guys to come up and press him,” Petrino said. “That’s how you want it. You want to have that type of confidence. Come on and play me man and I’ll get the opportunity to make plays. More times than not he’s made the play and we’ve been pretty accurate with the throws. It balances out and opens up your run game. That’s kind of the balance you see. When you run the ball better, you can throw it better. When you can beat man coverage and beat one-on-one coverage, then that allows you to be able to run the ball better because they have to get out of the man coverage.”

• Finally, how does Arkansas feel about playing the No. 1 team on the road? The Razorbacks are looking forward to it, of course. Here is QB Ryan Mallett’s take from Monday’s press conference.

“I mean, there’s always a little bit extra when you’re playing a ranked team, getting ready to prepare for it,” Mallett said. “And then coming in No. 1 and playing the No. 1 team, it’s a big deal for our program. We need to go out there and come home with a win.”

If all goes as planned, this will be the last you hear from me today. I’m hoping to take the rest of the day off after a busy, two-sport week.

If that’s the case, I’ll check back in with you from Gainesville, Fla., tomorrow.

Make sure you follow us here on the Blog and also on Twitter (@NWARobbie, @NWAAlex and @NWAOnlineHogs)

  OK, so now that I’ve gotten some lunch – and more importantly, some caffeine after a long night of writing – I’m back at the office and ready to talk some Arkansas scrimmage. In case you missed it, there was a lot to digest after the Razorbacks went 177 plays, according to Arkansas’ count.

  Quarterback Ryan Mallett didn’t have his best day. He overthrew several open receivers and missed on a few throws that would have turned into either big gains or touchdowns. Still, the sophomore finished 31-of-50 for 379 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.

  Mallett’s lone interception proved costly when defensive tackle Lavunce Askew caught it and returned it 59 yards for a touchdown. It was as if the ball just slipped out of Mallett’s hand.

  Tyler Wilson got into a rhythm at times and led the second-team offense downfield against the first-team defense. He finished 22-of-33 for 248 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Afterward, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino criticized his first-team defense, saying that he thought the unit would dominate more than it did.

  Wide receiver Greg Childs continued to look strong, catching nine passes for 110 yards with one touchdown. The sophomore admitted afterward that he has picked up his game over the past week, and he appears to be on the verge of having a breakout year if things go as they have been lately.

  Fellow wide receiver Cartlon Salters also had a strong performance, making catches for 119 yards. He also caught a pass on a fourth down, leading Petrino to joke afterward that Salters is their fourth-down receiver. As you might remember, Salters had a big fourth-down catch against LSU last year that allowed Casey Dick to connect with London Crawford for the Miracle on Markham 2.

  We will soon have full scrimmage statistics posted on the blog. Bye for now. Oh, check me out on Twitter (@NWAAlex).

  Since Arkansas went through its first extensive scrimmage of preseason camp, there is plenty of information to come out of Saturday.

  Robbie Neiswanger was nice enough to add up the statistics from the 154-play scrimmage, while I typed up what Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino had to say about the day. Here are some highlights from Petrino’s news conference following the scrimmage.

  On the performance of quarterbacks Ryan Mallett and Tyler Wilson:

  “I think Ryan Mallett did a good job of completing passes and knowing where to go for the most part. I think what he has to improve on is not taking sacks and not taking negative plays. He’s got to know when to throw the ball away. He’s not a scrambler or a running quarterback, so he has to be able to throw the ball away and get us to second-and-10. We had way too many second-and-extra-longs, which I didn’t like. 

  “Tyler again shows how well he can throw the ball. He’s got to be able to execute the offense and do the different things in the running game and not fumbles snaps, and keep improving in that part.”

  On how the running backs played:

  “Played a lot running backs. I think initially you see Dennis Johnson stand out. I thought he played fast and made some plays. The plan for Michael Smith was to take one series and get him out, so we got that accomplished and he made one nice run. I think made some yards after contact. And then I thought Broderick Green showed some power. We ran him when he was tired. We gave him the ball about five, six, seven times in a row, which was good to see because that’s when you got to wear the defense down. I was happy about that.

  “Knile (Davis) is struggling. You can see he missed the early part of camp, doesn’t really know all of his assignments and tracks. He’s just struggling. He’s behind everybody else. Ronnie Wingo showed what he could do in the open field. He’s explosive, very good athlete, does a nice job cutting.”

  On the problems with the quarterback-center exchange:

  “Yeah, there’s some problems out there. We haven’t had them up to this time, but once it gets live, once the centers get tired- The quarterbacks and the centers get to get extra chances in practice Monday and get in better condition. That’s something that we’re not going to stand for. I was really disappointed in the one in shotgun because we haven’t had that one at all. So some of it is the quarterback pulling out. Ryan pulls out sometimes, and some of it is the centers get tired and don’t get the ball up like they need to.”

  On the performance of the wide receivers:

  “We saw guys that can make plays. Jarius Wright has the speed, Joe (Adams) can really run with the ball. The more we can get him the ball, the more he can run with it. I thought (Greg) Childs stood out, had a lot of third-down conversions out of Childs and he ran hard with the ball. I think London got a little bit dinged up, I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong with him. But we got a good receiving corp. It would be nice to get Lucas back. He actually could have went today, but he didn’t deserve to get to scrimmage because he some practices.”

  On how the defense performed:

  “No. 10 (linebacker Wendel Davis) made a lot of tackles. I think he’s come back and ran around, made a lot of tackles. I thought our defensive ends put some pressure on the quarterback. We have to have much better discipline by our rush guys inside. You know, they’re going out of their lanes and that’s why you see the quarterbacks run down the field just about anytime they wanted to. So we need to improve that.”

  On the performance of kicker Alex Tejada:

  “You know, you can’t miss the first one. He came back, which I think is a good thing. Come back and finish strong, but you can’t miss an easy chip shot. Some of that was the snap. The snap was off line, but there’s really no excuse from that far. You got to kick it through the uprights.”

Labor Day isn’t a day off for everyone, especially when the college football season opens a few days before the holiday.

Well, since I’m working, I thought I’d drop a few highlights on the blog from Arkansas’ news conference with coach Bobby Petrino and four players earlier today.

Petrino has made a few changes to the depth chart. Freshman Greg Childs has been named the starting “X” receiver, filling the spot held by junior London Crawford before he suffered a concussion in last Saturday’s 28-24 win over Western Illinois.

Childs showed he could make plays as a freshman, leading the Razorbacks with six catches for 88 yards and a touchdown. It remains to be seen how long Crawford is bothered by the effects of the concussion. Petrino said he saw the junior earlier Monday, and Crawford told him he was feeling better.

Meanwhile, offensive guard Mitch Petrus isn’t listed anywhere on the depth chart. This isn’t much of a surprise since Arkansas officials are still trying to get him cleared to play. Petrus is eligible to practice, but there is an undisclosed issue that’s preventing him from playing in games.

Petrino said there is no change in Petrus’ status since today is a holiday and school is closed.

Not surprisingly, running back Michael Smith has returned to the starting lineup after missing the season opener because of a minor NCAA violation for misuse of textbooks. His return should help jumpstart a running game that managed only 76 yards against Western Illinois.

Labor Day is all about barbecues... and sleeping.

I hope everyone enjoys his or her day off. On that note, I should get back to work if I hope to test out my new barbecue grill later tonight.