Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/27/2010 at 2:48pm

The general consensus about Arkansas Razorback football this year is that the offense behind Ryan Mallett and Bobby Petrino's play-calling will be feared by the opposition, but the defense must make long strides from what has been seen the past two seasons for the Hogs to contend for the SEC West championship.

ArkansasSports360.com’s Jim Harris recently sat down with Arkansas defensive coordinator Willy Robinson to talk about his expectations on defense, the areas of strength and the main personnel area of concern, and why Arkansas’ defense in recent seasons, even before Robinson arrived with Bobby Petrino in 2008, struggled early on to be settled:

JH: Let’s talk about Jake Bequette at end and how far he’s come since you and Coach Petrino arrived. He’s a candidate for all-star honors now.

WR: Physically, he’s been blessed with great size. And he’s been able to work through our weight room and his eating habits so that he's added on to that size. What’s most impressive so far is the fact that he has gotten bigger and he has gotten stronger, but he’s even gotten quicker. In some of the testing that our strength staff does, his numbers are shooting upper percentile, impressive enough that it’s going to give himself a chance to make us a really good football team on defense. Then I think he’s going to be a guy that catches people’s eye. I think [his play is] going to have to do a lot with our success.

JH: Now, did I hear this right? Was this on the record, that you said last year he has the most pro potential of anybody you’ve got on defense?

WR: I did say that. If you come out and walk onto our campus as a regional scout, an area scout, a position coach coming from the NFL, you’re looking at this youngster and thinking, "Man, this kid’s everything that you want him to look like. OK, now how does he play on film?" And that’s up to their decision to make. But when you look at this kid man-to-man, in person, talk with him, he’s an impressive youngster who's going to catch some people’s eye. Now, it’s a matter of him raising his game a little bit. And if he does that, his future is very bright. So is ours.

JH: Let’s delve further into the defensive end position. Coach [Steve] Caldwell was brought on board to coach the position. Bequette has played a lot now. Sophomore Tenarius Wright is back and being talked about as a potential star. It seems like a position that two years ago you really didn’t talk about has now become the position of strength on the defense.

WR: I think [about the ends] because of our history here, the kid that will always be a favorite in my heart will be AD (Adrian Davis). He’s a kid that did a lot of things for us, he had a lot of production. The fact that Jake is what we said he was, the fact that Tenarius Wright is back, I mean, maturity-wise, physical- and strength-wise, he’s an impressive youngster and he’s had some games under his belt. I think the guy that’s overlooked at times is [Demario] Mario Ambrose, who had a GREAT spring. From day one to the spring game he had a great spring. I think that had a lot to do with Coach Caldwel, I think, the fact that Mario played with a lot of confidence. Finding that fourth end is where we’re going to have to sit down and bring some kids along, be it Colton Nash, be it Chris Smith, be it Jeremiah Jackson, Ryan Calender, who’s that fourth now ... As long as those three kids can continue on their progress like they have, we have three guys with one of them [Smith] who can fly. It's a very good athletic, good-looking group.

JH: Statistically the defense has been at the bottom of the SEC in yardage allowed the past two years. The defense did improve its points-allowed stats last year from 32 to 26. I know stats don’t matter much, to coaches anyway, and there are other goals you seek and the bottom line is to win. What does this defense need to do this year, what do you want out of this defense?

WR: We’ve got to stop giving up the big play. That’s our goal, [eliminating] the big chunks of yardage on one play that hurt us. I think that when we were consistent and we didn’t have those setbacks, we saw some glimpses of what we could be. And now we’ve gotten bigger and faster and stronger that that’s where we kind of hope that we don’t have those big chunks, or as many as we had last year. I think we’re going to work on our turnover ratio and get that done, and I thought we made great strides there [last year]. But it’s still the big play we have to eliminate.

Now, some of it might be mental, some of it might be physical, some of it might be a lack of courage, OK? That’s what we’ve got to overcome and we’ve got to make sure we stress and understand that the lack of courage won’t be tolerated. The mental part, we’ve got to find out what we’re teaching them, what they’re hearing.

So, it’s been stressed, all right? You can almost go to a point, though, and you have to be careful of stressing it too much and then all of a sudden you become tentative. So, let’s not be tentative. Let’s still keep our aggressive nature. But let’s do it better and be smarter.

JH: The biggest defensive question coming out of the spring was at linebacker, and specifically it seems as if middle linebacker was the biggest question mark for this defense in the off-season. Where are you there and where can you be?

WR: I think right now the kids that we have working in there all bring something to the table. Jermaine Love brings a great physical presence inside there. Now, it’s going to be trying to find out who that second guy is, and possibly who that third guy is ... Jermaine, first of all, is the guy we’re counting on because when he’s on the field he brings such a physical presence, and that becomes contagious with that kid for the rest of our players. Now, he is limited in some other things and so that’s where we’ve got to be smart enough to develop some depth when he’s not on the field ... We’ve got some competition going on there, but we’ll wait and see on that.

JH: In the three season before this staff arrived, when Reggie Herring coordinated the defense for Houston Nutt, and in your first two seasons, it seems that Arkansas’ defense has had trouble early in the season finding itself, that it takes until October to settle down. Is that because of personnel, finding the right people? What has caused the early season problems on defense?

WR: I’m not sure about Coach Herring and what his deal was, but [since we’ve been here] it’s figuring out your personnel, and from my standpoint it’s finding out how much can you give these kids to do. I think what we’ve pressed on them to do is to not cut back in our first two years. We kept force-feeding ’em and force-feeding ’em and force-feeding ’em, and we probably suffered because I was too stubborn not to find out exactly what we do best.

So that might be on me, OK? But I think because of that what you see now this year, so far — and you saw it in the spring — is an understanding and knowledge, maybe even a little bit of a trust, that these kids are playing faster, they’re reacting faster, and you’re starting to see the speed that we recruited. You’re starting to see it come to light because they are having a quick reaction, a quick response, and that’s kind of what we’ve been striving for.

I mean, I know it’s painful. It’s been painful for all of us here, the whole Hog family and staff. But I think that what we have to do is, now it’s time to go and show. Let’s represent. We feel like we’re at that point that we’re going to come out and show ourselves that we are is what we always thought we were going to be. It’s just taken us a little time to get there.

Tagged: Willy Robinson, Jim Harris, Jermaine Love, Jake Bequette, Tenarius Wright