Razorbacks Starting Later Planned with Full Season in Mind

A lot of teams started Wednesday, but Hogs kick off Friday morning

Author:
Andy Hodges
Updated:
Aug 3, 2023 9:33 AM EDT
Original:
Aug 2, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas will get fall camp practices started early Friday morning. We definitely mean early, too. Try before 7 a.m. that day. Some folks will just be getting in at that time of the day.

"We just felt like camp’s long enough as it is," Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman said Wednesday afternoon. "With less full pads than we’ve ever had before, we decided to just go ahead and bring them in the 29th day before to get our 25 in. They’ll have the first Wednesday off and then Saturday’s after that. We’ll scrimmage in two weeks and then we’ll start prep about 10 days out for Western Carolina.”

Don't expect a lot of on-site reporting about what's going on. The media won't be able to see a whole lot, getting about 20 minutes of access on most days and that will likely be at the beginning. About the only thing we'll know for sure is what little we get from assistant coaches and players until the first game Sept. 2 against Western Carolina in Little Rock.

Pittman is more concerned with execution, which isn't that far-fetched, considering the triple-digit temperatures we've seen over the past couple of weeks. He's thinking about how much is left in the tank and doesn't want people with dead legs and worn out before Halloween.

“It’s going to be hot, we understand that," Pittman said. "We have adjusted our times. We’re going to go in the a.m. With it being over 100 degrees over the next three days, we’re going to have practice in the a.m. We know we’re in condition, we’ve been conditioning in the heat all summer. We’re trying to have some really good practices, so we have plenty of time to get them acclimated to the heat, but right now we’ve decided to change our first few practices to the a.m.”

What he's doing is planning ahead a couple of months. Pittman is making changes from last season, which was a disappointment to coaches and fans following a nine-win season in 2021. Returning to that form is what he wants and burning out everybody in August isn't the best way to change it. Making adjustment to the periods in practice from last season is also in the works.

"We’ve changed different periods,” Pittman said. “Certainly the emphasis that we’ve had from last year — whether it be third down, whether it be short-yardage, whether it be getting off the field on defense, our goal-line package, our third-play-fourth versus two-play-three — those things are in our practice schedule. We have also done a little bit different with our ball security period. We’re doing more bubble stuff. We’re doing more half-line pass. We’re doing some things in that part of it, along with fastball starts, trying to get our team a little more physical and try to start that a little earlier in practice.”

Honestly, though, Pittman is just focused on what the Hogs need to have a better record. The past is in the rear-view mirror and it's hard to go forward looking backward, especially driving the size vehicle a college football is these days.

"We’re trying to approach camp on us and getting better," he said. "We still have a lot of new faces, and that’s not only on the kids but the coaching staff. Most of our guys were with us through spring ball with our new staff, but we still have quite a few that we have to figure out if they’re going to help us or not this year too.

“Honestly, we didn’t play well against the teams that we were favored to beat. We lost that chip at times. We have to coach that way and feel that way and all those things. So, we just have to get back to old Arkansas football. We started that in January, but I really like where we are at. I like the hunger of the team and things of that nature. We’ll have to see, but I don’t think it will affect us much because we have a lot of work to do on ourselves.”