It’s that time of week again. Done with final stories in preparation for Saturday’s game. Waiting for the Stephens jet to pick us up and take us to Arlington tomorrow (and hopefully we’ll get there before kickoff this time).
But while we wait, it’s time to clean out my notebook with some leftover notes, quotes and thoughts before the Texas A&M game.
• Everyone wants to know how QB Ryan Mallett is going to respond after a bad day at ‘Bama. I got a chance to ask Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino about it after Thursday’s practice. He said Mallett has given plenty of indication that he’ll bounce back this week.
“He’s done a great job of leading,” Petrino said. “He’s been very focused. He’s worked real hard at his footwork. Like you would like a guy to respond. Like you would like a great competitor to respond.”
Mallett will get his opportunities against a defense that hasn’t faced a big test, yet. But Texas A&M has shown an ability to pressure quarterbacks, collecting 14 sacks in three games. Eight of those have come from defense end/linebacker Von Miller. Mallett said earlier this week his inability to handle the pressure cost his team at ‘Bama. But he wants to make sure he does a better job Saturday.
“I was trying to make plays and get my team back in the game, but in reality, if I would have stuck to my technique, I would hit a lot of those throws that we missed,” Mallett said.
• One more thing Petrino was asked about Thursday: Does the SEC vs. Big 12 matter? His response was, not really. Arkansas has other things to worry about after dropping a couple of games.
“It means that we need to go down and get us a win,” Petrino said. “You know what I mean? It adds up probably for the conferences and all that, but this is really about us going down and playing well. Seeing our hard work pay off. Being able to fight through tough times and stick together and go down and play well. I want to see us compete, play well, finish the game with a ‘W.’”
Petrino also was asked if this has become a “backs against the wall” game for his team. He wouldn’t go that far.
“We want to win it,” Petrino said. “There’s no question about it. We need to execute, play well and win the game.”
• A lot has been said of Texas A&M QB Jerrod Johnson. And for good reason. Johnson is off to a great start, averaging more than 300 passing yards a game. He has 9 TDs, 0 INTs. He also is the team’s second-leading rusher and has scored 4 rushing TDs so far.
The dual-threat is a new element for the Hogs. Safety Matt Harris said Arkansas will have to be on its toes tomorrow night.
“It’s just one more thing,” Harris said. “The beauty of football and defense. There’s’s always something they can throw at you. There’s always an offense to prepare for. But we’ve been working hard all practice all week long. So we’re not going to go in there intimidated by a dual-threat quarterback. We’re going to respect him, but we’re going to play our defense.”
• Junior college transfer Andru Stewart spent part of the week working with the first-team defense. We don’t know if he’ll start Saturday, but do know he is starting to impress Arkansas’ coaches. It has taken Stewart time, but defensive coordinator Willy Robinson said he’s starting to figure out what he needs to do to succeed at this level. The first step was to get past feeling overwhelmed by it all.
“He was overwhelmed,” Robinson said. “There was a lot of information being pushed to him (in the spring). I think the other part of it is sometimes you come in and here’s a young man that comes from California and he’s made it to the SEC and it’s like, ‘Well, I’m here.’ So there’s a little bit of, I don’t think it’s confidence, it’s that he felt shoot he made it. Why do everything else? So he had to learn how to earn his money.”
• We all know Arkansas’ secondary has struggled to defend against the pass. But the Razorbacks could use some help from their pass rushers, too. The Razorbacks defensive front has 3 1/2 sacks in three games. The defensive ends have just one of those. I got to talk to DE coach Kirk Botkin for a little while Wednesday and we talked about getting pressure on the quarterback.
“We’ve been pretty productive so far stopping the run,” Botkin said. “We’ve got to get better pressure on the quarterback and that comes from all four of the defensive linemen. But I think at the end spot we only have one quarterback sack. That’s an area I’m tryng to emphasize.”
Botkin said it’s not all about sacks. The Razorbacks won’t get to the quarterback every time, but need to make him hurry his throws. We saw what can happen last Saturday. Alabama only had three sacks, but Mallett was under pressure and hurried most of the day.
• We all know that Arkansas’ receivers, like Mallett, had a tough outing against ‘Bama. Dropped passes and other mistakes were costly. WR Jarius Wright said the group probably lost its confidence early with some dropped passes. However, he said there’s no excuse for it and vowed that the Razorbacks’ receiving corps is determined to play better this week.
“After the game, we just had to get our priorities straight,” Wright said. “The way we bounce back is just coming into the next game and showing everybody that we can play lights out. We can be the lights out receivers everybody thought we were in the first two games.”
• Arkansas needs to run the ball Saturday. It’s something that has been said plenty of times, but offensive tackle Ray Dominguez added an important reason when he spoke to us Tuesday. The Razorbacks need to help their defense as much as possible because of Texas A&M’s frenetic, no-huddle offense which is averaging more than 80 snaps a game. The more Arkansas can stay on the field, the more rest the defense gets.
“Everyone knows we can pass the ball, but we’re really trying to establish the run just so we can control the clock,” Dominguez said. “Three-and-out and only wasting 30 seconds off the clock doesn’t help. It keeps our defense out (on the field) and it keeps them tired.”
• I wrote something on Matt Harris and his father, former Dallas Cowboys great Cliff Harris for today’s paper. But I didn’t get in a funny quote from Monday’s press conference, when Matt Harris was asked what his dad thinks of the new stadium.
Harris said he hasn’t heard from his dad about it. In fact, he didn’t even know his dad was there for the opening game in Cowboys Stadium.
“He didn’t even actually tell me he was going to the game because we played Georgia and he came to the Georgia game,” Harris said. “They played the Giants the next day. He was so caught in the Georgia game and asked me a question about the Georgia game that he forgot to even mention he was going to go to the opening game at Texas Stadium. That is the kind of guy he is – just so concerned about his kid still that he didn’t even say anything about it. I called him at halftime. ‘I said I saw you on TV, you didn’t tell me you were going to the game.’”
• I’ll close with one more note from Texas A&M defensive coordinator Joe Kines. The Aggies have been relying on tons of youth on defense this season (sound familiar). There are 14 freshmen and sophomores on the defensive depth chart. Kines was asked about it by the media in College Station, Texas, earlier this week. Here was his response:
“That’s what we’ve got,” Kines said. “They’re a good bunch and they’re getting better every day. They’re fun to coach and it’s fun to come to work with them. They’re going to make some mistakes, but they’re going to run out of some problems sometimes, too. I think that’s the biggest difference this year. Sometimes we can make a mistake and we’re fast enough to run out of it and overcome it. Before we just say, ‘Oh my goodness.’”
That’s it for me for the week. I’m going to try to slip away and enjoy some downtime before setting up in the press box tomorrow night.
Make sure you check out RazorbackCentral.com later tonight and tomorrow for more on this game. Alex Abrams is in Arlington right now working on a story on Cowboys Stadium and another on the renewal of this old SWC series.
Don’t forget to check back here to the Hog Blog tomorrow for plenty of info before, during and after the game. And you can always follow us on Twitter at three locations (@NWAOnlineHogs, @NWARobbie, and @NWAAlex).
