Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/7/2010 at 10:49pm

Image by Nelson Chenault

TALKING HOGS: Arkansas defensive standout Jerico Nelson is interviewed by Fayetteville TV sportscaster Mark Lericos during UA Media Day.

This much is certain: There is an air of confidence around the Arkansas football program we haven’t detected in years.

Surely it’s to be expected when a program is being built the right way in a head coach’s third season. It’s what we’ve anticipated through the past two seasons, as Coach Bobby Petrino reconstructed it darned-near from scratch in 2008, playing 16 freshmen his first year leading the Razorbacks. He then took his offense to a whole new level last year in quarterback Ryan Mallett’s debut year.

The Razorback players on both sides of the ball seem to believe what their coach has preached since the 2009 season ended with a 20-17 overtime win in Memphis over East Carolina in the Liberty Bowl: Arkansas’ football program can achieve great things in 2010.

We pulled ourselves away from our investigative research into comparing Oregon’s and Ole Miss’ post-graduate programs to attend Saturday’s Razorback media day in Fayetteville. It may be the day many in the UA athletic department secretly dread on an annual basis, but somebody (likely starting from Athletic Director Jeff Long on down) convinced everybody to put on a happy face for the press, even if it wasn’t second nature.

Mallett, naturally, was one of the last players still being interviewed when we packed it in and headed back down the mountain, more than three hours after the media began congregating. For us, it consisted of a 4 a.m. wakeup call, a 5 a.m. meeting at a park-and-ride in North Little Rock with photographer Nelson Chenault, to arrive for a 7:45 a.m. breakfast in the Broyles Complex (in a room we’re glad to see is now used for press conferences and not for lifting weights. They’ve moved all those weights, and then some, down Razorback Road).

A little less than three hours of interviews and it was over, and time for a two-and-a-half-hour drive home. Game days are longer than this.

But before departing, we noted that senior tight end D.J. Williams was also still in demand, moving down a row of lined-up seats, with a different video camera set up at each one, and a different reporter trying to vary the questions Williams had no doubt heard over and over.

Ramon Broadway, the fifth-year senior defensive back from Shreveport, also was one of the last remaining Hogs for interviews. Not afraid even in the past to speak his mind, his candid responses about his five years in Fayetteville were refreshing. His maturity in his answers also was obvious.

Maturity seemed to be the key word describing all these Hogs on Saturday.

Team pictures were taken on the east stands before the bright sun broke over Reynolds Razorback Stadium. Requested players had found their seats, and the media who sought them out, on the ground floor of the Broyles Complex. The Razorbacks, dressed in their new NIKE uniforms that the head coach loves, lined up one-by-one at the east end all morning, in front of a blue screen, for their posed shots that would be used on the videoboard this season. Mid-afternoon practice awaited the veterans, followed by a practice for the Hog newcomers.

It was all such an efficient operation Saturday morning, like everything else we’ve come to expect from Petrino since he took over in December 2007.

On Monday, Petrino said to us, when the players don pads for the first time and all as one group instead of being divided into vets and new guys, they’ll repeat exactly what they did without the pads earlier this week in practices one and two. He expects this new approach to be more efficient in preparing the Hogs for polishing the offensive and defensive sets before they unveil them Sept. 4 against Tennessee Tech.

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that the offense, with Mallett leading the way and with the running game now getting a heavy emphasis to complement the pass, will click like none other in the Southeastern Conference. Fans likely have a wait-and-see approach to whether the defense can reach the standards expected of a SEC contender, however.

Defensive coordinator Willy Robinson, in my one-on-one interview with him, was willing to shoulder a lot of the blame for the struggles of the past two years, admitting that he was “stubborn” in continually force feeding a young and maybe not-that-skilled bunch to play his style of defense. He knew it was "painful for all of Hog Nation,” Robinson said, as the learning process took time, and as success didn’t some as quickly.

But anyone with eyes had to notice last season the growth and improvement of the defense from the Texas A&M game on. With the exception of a letdown at Ole Miss, the Razorback defense played above its ability and gave the offense the opportunity to win each game, even if things didn’t go Arkansas’ way in heartbreakers at Florida and LSU. When the offense failed to click for most of the Liberty Bowl, it was the defense that rose up with big plays and gave Arkansas a chance to survive.

The name continually coming up among the defensive players Saturday was that of end Demario Ambrose. Actually, they seemed to all call him “Mario,” but it was obvious much is expected after what Robinson said was a terrific spring for the Mobile, Ala., junior.

With Jake Bequette, a junior voted one of the six Hog captains by the team, at one end, and Tenarius Wright back from off-season foot surgery at the other, plus Ambrose, defensive end looks like a plus these days, not the liability it might have been when Robinson and Petrino arrived two seasons ago.

The question, even at the start of last season, was “where was the pass rush going to come from?” Now, Robinson has three weeks to find “that fourth end” among a couple of freshmen he likes — fast and strong Chris Smith and Alabamian Jeremiah Johnson — or returnee Colton Nash, who has been switched back from tight end.

Petrino left the spring with a concern about the linebacking corps, and he still had those feelings Saturday, he said. But the staff also believes they can come up with a variety of combinations that can work, especially if the defensive tackles and ends live up to now-lofty expectations.

Plus, Petrino seemed almost giddy when he talked about his secondary and the way the returnees have been competing against a pretty good bunch of Razorback receivers in the early practices.

Even the kicking positions have competition now, and fierce fighting for starting jobs makes for better players and a better team.

The other line from Petrino and his staff and players that stood out Saturday about the defense was that now, after two years, the learning part is past and the players can react. This means they can play faster. The defense will be a quicker and stronger group with quality competition at every position.

Jermaine Love, returning for his fourth and last season, mentioned the fight he has on his hands to be the starting middle linebacker. Love, easily one of the more affable players on the team, cut up in my one-on-one time with him, but he was dead serious about his approach to this season and why he’s motivated.

“It’s my last year,” he said. Linebackers coach Reggie Johnson, taking note of Love as well as the significant physical change in fifth-year senior linebacker Ryan Powers, said, "A last year is a great motivator for some players."

When Love was just about to drive down cliché avenue about this season, I laughingly begged him to not offer up the “take it one game at a time,” mantra.

“But Jim, we want to make it to the SEC Championship Game, and we all know that we have to take each game in the SEC one game at a time to get there,” he insisted. We should also note everyone seemed to be on a first-name basis with us. We in the media all had name tags, and our interview subjects went to great lengths to say our names. The impression, if nothing else, was that they cared to be there and were glad we'd shown up too.

Two years ago, the assembled Razorbacks in Petrino’s first media day in Fayetteville no doubt probably talked a good game, as most teams do in preseason. But if one listened closely it was possible to detect uncertainty, if not doubt.

There’s a bit of certainty emanating from coaching staff and Hog players this August.

Tagged: Jeff Long, Bobby Petrino, Willy Robinson, Ramon Broadway, Jake Bequette, D.J. Williams, Ryan Mallett, Tenarius Wright, Demario Ambrose, Jermaine Love