Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

7/20/2011 at 11:38am

It should probably come as no surprise that those three cupcake games Arkansas has scheduled to open the season will all start at 6 p.m. or later, the SEC revealed in Hoover, Ala., Wednesday morning.

Arkansas' opener with Missouri State in Fayetteville will be televised on a pay-per-view basis by the UA (each SEC school gets one PPV home game) and will kick off at 6 p.m.

The Razorbacks' early Little Rock visit, the Sept. 10 game against New Mexico, will be carried by ESPNU and will begin at 6 p.m.

The Hogs' game with Troy on Sept. 17 is set for a 6:30 kickoff and television via CSS.

The only other Razorback start time we know officially is the 1:30 p.m. start to the LSU game on Friday, Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving, from Baton Rouge, with CBS picking the game back up for Friday after a two-year absence.

Here is the complete SEC television schedule for the first three weeks of the season, as well as set double-header dates on CBS and other certain kickoff times throughout the year.

CBS, which carries the U.S. Open tennis tournament through early September, doesn't broadcast a national SEC game until the Sept. 17 Tennessee at Florida matchup. Brigham Young at Ole Miss and Boise State vs. Georgia in Atlanta are ESPN's debut league contests on Sept. 3, with ESPN2 carrying Utah State at Auburn that day.

The SEC Notebook From Hoover will be updated throughout the day. Follow more real-time happenings from SEC Media Days via our staff on Twitter: @cbahn, @arksports360, @jimharris360, or on the ArkansasSports360.com Facebook page as well as on our main site.

ON THE LINE: Arkansas has speed, experience and what Petrino calls a good "mindset" entering 2011. What the Razorbacks also have are questions about the offensive line. Gone are a pair of three-year starters at both tackle positions. Presumed replacement Anthony Oden is gone now after a second DWI arrest. Freshman Brey Cook is being counted on to step into a starting role, and junior college transfer Jason Peacock also is in the mix, along with fifth-year senior Grant Freeman.

Players think the team will be fine despite the uncertainty at both tackle spots.

"Obviously we took a big hit losing Anthony Oden, but … we have confidence in those guys," running back Knile Davis said of the offensive line.

Jarius Wright also expressed little concern at tackle.

"I’ve got full faith in the coaching staff. That’s where it starts," Wright said.

KICKING CONCERNS: Arkansas' returning punter, junior Dylan Breeding, and returning placekicker, sophomore Zach Hocker, both were All-SEC preseason picks, two of 14 Hogs chosen by the league coaches. But, while Arkansas seems in good shape from the actual kicking aspect, the kickoff coverage team was a consistently mediocre area of the team throughout the 2010, so much so that Bobby Petrino did something this spring he rarely does: practice kick coverage.

Petrino said the problems did not rest simply with personnel on the coverage unit, though Arkansas noticeably had less speed and tackling ability on either end. Speedy Knile Davis and Ronnie Wingo, mainstays two years ago on kick coverage, were used less as their roles on offense progressed.

In particular, LSU All-American Patrick Peterson had a big day against the Hogs, who still managed to overcome the breakdowns and handing LSU good field position to beat the Tigers 31-23. In the 65-43 loss to Auburn, Arkansas was abysmal in coverage, including giving up a 95-yard return to Onterrio McCalebb that set up a short Tigers score in that wild contest. Throughout the year, with the exception of the Sugar Bowl against Ohio State's vaunted return game, Arkansas was spotty on coverage, and Petrino acknowledged as much Wednesday.

"Well, when you break it down ... it's due to the entire squad," Petrino said. "You have to do two things: You have to kick the ball correctly, whether you're placing it, get the hang time -- it'd be nice to kick it in the end zone -- and then you have to be able to cover with full speed, with discipline, and tackle well.

"At times we broke down in areas, in different areas. Sometimes we didn't kick the ball right. Sometimes we got out of our lane. Sometimes we did everything right till right at the end; we didn't tackle well and the guy broke a tackle and made a big play against us.

"It's an area we have to improve on. We spent a lot of time in spring ball working on it, which I usually never do. I usually like to just work on punt and punt return in spring ball."

LIKE PICKING RACE HORSES: It appears the SEC media have a track record of picking the eventual league champion that rates about as well as the average racetrack bettor, if not worse. Since 1992, when the expanded league began including Arkansas and South Carolina in football, the media have picked the eventual champion four times in 19 years. That's a woeful 21 percent success rate.

On a better note, the media have successful picked seven teams out of those 19 years that at least reached the SEC Championship Game, with three teams losing. That happened twice in the first two years of the media poll: Florida losing to eventual national champ Alabama in 1992; the Gators dumping top pick Alabama in 1993.

We'll know how the assemble media sees the race for 2011 on Friday. The voting closes on Thursday.

PLANNING AHEAD: The league doesn't mess around with this event, pulling out all the stops to accommodate a national horde of national print, radio, TV and Internet media. The SEC has even already set the order for NEXT YEAR'S rotation of teams. Arkansas' head coach (we assume it will still be Bobby Petrino after he signed a lengthy extension following last year's 10-win season) and players will appear before the media on the final day, Friday, July 20, here at Hoover.

MIXED (HAND) SIGNALS: Thanks to quarterback Ryan Mallett, Arkansas got a good bit of publicity in the lead up to the NFL Draft in April. Maybe the Razorbacks got a little too much.

Mallett was featured on a Jon Gruden Quarterback Camp special. Mallett revealed a couple of the team’s signals on the broadcast, much to Petrino’s chagrin.

“We’ve already changed them,” Petrino said, breaking a smile. “I wasn’t real happy with him, by the way, when I was informed that he did that. He called me up and apologized. He gave us a few ideas for some new hand signals, so that always helps.”

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: Bobby Petrino isn't just a brilliant football tactician. He's a smart man.

Petrino led off his SEC Media Days session Wednesday by mentioning he and his wife were celebrating their 26th anniversary. He then shared a memory of driving with his wife to their honeymoon, while singing along to "Put Me in Coach" [John Fogerty's 'Centerfield'].

"Got that out of the way," Petrino said. "Means I can get back in the house tonight."

COVER BOYS: Raise your hand if you didn't make the 2011 Arkansas media guide cover.

OK. There aren’t THAT many Razorbacks on the front of the 2011 media guide, but when comparing to last year when only quarterback Ryan Mallett was the cover boy, it’s a change.

Arkansas features DE Jake Bequette, S Tramain Thomas, LB Jerry Franklin, WRs Jarius Wright, Joe Adams and Greg Childs and RB Knile Davis on this year’s FRONT cover. On the back are RBs Ronnie Wingo and Dennis Johnson, DE Tenarius Wright, OL Alvin Bailey and Travis Swanson, LB Jerico Nelson and DB Isaac Madison.

Not included is QB Tyler Wilson. But he's yet to lock down the starting job and has never started a game, so it's understandable.

BETTER PREPARED: South Carolina sophomore running back Marcus Lattimore was a sensation early last season and, when he was healthy, was a huge reason the Gamecocks won the SEC East championship and made the program's first appearance in the SEC Championship Game. But Lattimore admits being shocked at the intensity of college defenses. Starting with a big hit in an upset loss at Kentucky, Lattimore was bothered the last half of the season by various injuries, and suffered a vicious hit and concussion in the Chick-fil-A Bowl loss to Florida State.

"Oh yeah," he said, "coming from high school it was very different. That was the main difference, they hit you hard and hit hurts more."

In the off-season, Lattimore worked on strengthening his legs. "I just had to get my squat up. I changed my squat from, like, 405 [pounds] to now it's 455. That was my main focus, getting my legs stronger, getting more flexible and preventing injuries."

His head coach, Steve Spurrier, said Wednesday that based on the Gamecocks ranking seventh in league statistics both offense and defense last year, the SEC East-winning team was "mediocre." With Lattimore, all-star receiver Alshon Jeffery and highly touted incoming freshman defensive end Jadeveon Clowney leading the way, many in the media see South Carolina repeating in the East. It appears a lot will rest with fifth-year senior quarterback Stephen Garcia, who seems to spend as much time in Spurrier's doghouse as he does on the practice field.

Lattimore said of Garcia, "Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has a chance to grow. He's grown as a man. He knows what he's done. He's going to be our quarterback. He's got one more semester and he's got a shot at the NFL. He's going to be our quarterback."

SPEAKING OUT: "I don't need Chris Relf to be Alex Smith or Tim Tebow. I need him to just be Chris Relf."
— Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen on his returning senior quarterback and the Bulldogs' chances of improving on last year's nine-win season. As an offensive coordinator, Mullen coached Smith at Utah and Tebow at Florida.

SPEAKING OUT TOO: "He's not done anything to be arrested, thrown in jail, DUI's, things like that. He's just done some stupid things. There's actually some reasons he's done those things that we're trying to figure out to help him out, help him out so he won't do that anymore."
- South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier on troubled senior quarterback Stephen Garcia, who was suspended yet again during the off-season.

Tagged: Alshon Jeffery, Marcus Lattimore, South Carolina Gamecocks, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Dylan Breeding, Zach Hocker, Steve Spurrier, Dan Mullen, Chris Relf, Southeastern Conference, SEC Media Days, Bobby Petrino, Will Muschamp, Jarius Wright, Tenarius Wright, Knile Davis, Florida Gators, Mike Slive, ESPN, CBS College Sports Network, CBS, Comcast Sports South