8/8 Arkansas practice notes (possible o-line injury)

- Starting OG Grant Cook might have sustained an injury today. He stayed on the ground after a play was over, and was helped off the field and had a noticeable limp. It only took one person to help him off, so there's hope it could be something minor.


- Peacock got the majority of the reps at the OT spot opposite of Freeman. He had a more consistent day as there are no false starts to report.


- Tramain Thomas had the play of the day. Brandon Mitchell tried to rifle in a pass to Joe Adams on a seam or post route about 20 yards down the field; Thomas broke on the pass, stretched his arm out, and snagged the ball out of the air with one hand for the interception. It was not a bad pass by Mitchell, just an outstanding play by Thomas.


- Safety Eric Bennett also had an interception today off a deflection. Bennett is still running with the second team defense behind Elton Forde.


- TE Colton Nash had an amazing grab today. He was running his route and was able to react to a pass that was tipped in front of him - he stopped running and twisted around to grab the ball out of the air. Nash has impressed me more each practice. Once he really settles into the TE role, he is going to be a solid contributor for us.


- Tyler Wilson had the best day passing. He was consistently hitting all the routes with plenty of zip. When he makes a great play he shows his enthusiasm and I really like to see that in a QB. While I love Mitchell's potential at QB, I think this is Wilson's team.

Watching all the QB's and WR's line up and run fade route after fade route is really something spectacular to see. We have 5 QB's who can throw a good deep ball, and too many WR's to count who can fly down the field and make the over the shoulder catch.

I noticed Jacoby Walker throws more of a flat "laser," whereas Brandon Allen puts a little more air under the ball. Both threw some pretty passes today. At times Allen looks spectacular, but he's not on Wilson or Mitchell's level YET as far as consistent accuracy. I do notice that whenever Allen does have to force a pass into tight coverage, he will not throw a 50/50 ball - he will throw it to where only the receiver can catch it, or throw it over everyone's head.

On one play Brandon Allen was running the offense from the right hash and threw an absolute bullet across the field to Herndon on a comeback route. I mean he literally threw it across the field - Herndon caught the ball almost right on the sideline. The crowd was positioned on that sideline and it was a thing of beauty to see that pass made across the field like that.


- Greg Childs was not running with the 1st team today and did not get as many reps as some of the other WR's. When he did play, he looked fine to me. The coaches are probably being a little cautious with him, and we have such a stockpile of great WR's it would be silly to expect him to participate as if he never had the injury.


- The defense ran the 5-2 a lot today with Jake Bequette, DD Jones, Robert Thomas, Byran Jones, and Tenarius Wright as the down lineman, and Franklin and Highsmith as the LB's. Sometimes Wright would drop back into coverage or even line up as a LB.

I saw Robert Thomas get to the QB a couple times, as well as Chris Smith who was running with the second team defense.

During media day Petrino talked about how the 2nd string d-line has an advantage over the 2nd string o-line, and I saw a little of what he was talking about. DT Zach Stadther had his way with the 2nd string interior o-line on a few plays.


- Adams, Wade, and Whitehurst worked as punt returners. Adams and Wade are noticeably more explosive than Whitehurst, but Whitehurst is quick, runs hard, and is shifty himself.

Breeding's punting looked great.


- Johnson, Wade, Wingo, Humphrey, and #81 (don't know who that is) returned kicks.


- Fullback Morgan Linton reminds me of former Arkansas fullback Mark Pierce. He has a similar frame and running style. I wouldn't be surprised to see him spell Kiero Small here and there this season. He will at least be an important contributor for us on special teams.


- The offense tried to run some option against a live defense today. Wilson tried to run a speed option from under center with Davis as the tailback, Wilson ran down the line and made the toss to Davis when he should have, but Davis dropped the pitch.

On another play we tried to run the pistol read-option with Mitchell, but the defense would have stopped it behind the line of scrimmage if they had been allowed to tackle.

Although we are working on these option plays, not a whole lot of time is spent on them and right now it's clear our power running game is our bread and butter if we want to keep the ball on the ground. If we can master these option plays though it will just be another thing opposing defenses have to prepare for and it gives opposing defensive coordinators even bigger headaches when trying to prepare for our offense.


- On the first play of the offense v. defense scrimmage, Wilson was under center and the ball ended up on the ground on the center-QB exchange. This did not happen again.

On the first punt return play, Adams dropped an easy catch - the ball hit him in the pads. On the next punt, Adams had to run and make a harder catch and did so. There were not other dropped punts.


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You can find this report and my past reports on my website - jonham.weebly.com