Hard to Find Many Negative, Positives Following First Scrimmages

It's hard to gauge Razorbacks, SEC team after one closed scrimmage, but whole story will come out eventually

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman watching a drill during summer practice on the outdoor practice field in Fayetteville, Ark. / Andy Hodges-Hogs on SI Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When teams finally wake up to prepare for its first scrimmage of fall camp there is a much different feel. Pads don't pop as hard in practice as they do in a live game setting. Being physical is the name of the game and Arkansas, along with many other programs around the SEC were missing key players.

There were a lot of key players sitting out during Arkansas' first scrimmage Thursday. Back pain, concussions and other ailments are all a product of fall camp so everyone can overreact to something 21 days away from kickoff.

Unless someone tears a muscle, ligament, fractures a bone or things of that nature there is nothing to really worry about on the injury front. Honestly, it's important to keep guys healthy at this stage of preseason, especially when a coach isn't really sure what he's got after not seeing a few transfers live during spring ball.

"Sometimes in these first scrimmages you can hold guys if they’re a little not bumped," Pittman said. "If there’s some ligament problems that could magnify because of the portal you’ve got to look at guys. It’s really good because you don’t want to put a guy in that’s a two that you’re looking at the first time against the ones in a live situation. So we looked at it as much as we could as a positive and I felt like we came out of the scrimmage that way.”

Now, when it comes to slow starts or a unit not showing up at all that is pretty normal. No coach is ever satisfied with their team's performance. An offense might look anemic, unenergized or going through the motions. In the recent past, Arkansas' defensive line has been recipient of praise after scrimmages due to manhandling the offensive line.

One promising comment made by Coach Sam Pittman pertained to the Razorbacks' lack of penalties. With an officiating crew affiliated with the SEC calling the scrimmage, Arkansas stayed plenty clean outside of a procedural penalty.

"To be honest with you, there were very few penalties,” Pittman said. “I don’t think the offense had but one illegal procedure late in the scrimmage. I think the first one there was with the threes, very clean there. We had about three defensive [pass interference calls], which I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. We’ll have to get better, but you’re talking about first team, second team and third team playing. So, overall I thought our penalties were good."

Former SEC personnel director Dave Shumate is very familiar with "scrimmage season." He notes that there's many highs, lows, under and overreactions to fall camps across the country.

"[College football teams] are getting into the thick of scrimmage season," Shumate said. "Remember, everything looks great and bad all at the same time, folks. Personally, the second scrimmage during camp was always my favorite."

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