Clay Henry: Can Hogs run the ball?
When do you know you have a football team? Plain and simple, when you can run the football on offense and stop the run on defense.
There are bells and whistles that complement those two things. You must be sound in the kicking game and do some basic things right in the passing game. You can’t give up big plays on defense so you can’t just overload the line of scrimmage to stop the run.
But when Arkansas coach Sam Pittman talked late last season about what he was looking for in an offensive coordinator after Dan Enos was fired, he said the right thing. He wanted someone who understood how to run the ball.
That’s why I was pleased when I watched scrimmages last spring. The offense was working on smash mouth stuff and ways to block ends and tackles with double teams. It was basic stuff. Fundamental football works.
One of the best tidbits gained from a Pittman media briefing midway through spring ball was a simple thought from Petrino. As those two were leaving the stadium after a scrimmage. Petrino said he thought they would be able to run the ball.
The only other thing that really matters concerns protections and the pass rush. Petrino gave me a simple gauge for the game of football early in his first year as head coach at Arkansas.
“It’s a simple game,” he said. “The good teams are the ones who can hit the quarterback and keep the other team from hitting your quarterback.”
Both are hard to figure out when you watch a scrimmage. You never know how to determine even if it’s a stalemate. If you can’t protect, are you bad in the line or is your quarterback unable to make the checks for protection? Are you any good on defense at applying pressure?
None of that is apparent until you play someone else. But you can judge talent based on experience and game tape. With the finds in the portal, coaches do have game tape to break down. You just have to be good at predicting if it’s SEC level talent.
For example, the new left tackle, Fernando Carmona, did not give up sacks at San Jose State. But that was not SEC football. But I’m going to lean towards what I saw in the spring, that he’ll be a huge improvement over what the Hogs had at left tackle last season.
As far as pass rushers, there is confidence that Landon Jackson and Anton Juncaj are SEC caliber. They look the part when I stood beside them on the sideline during practice Friday.
I watched all of the practice as part of the Hogs+ team. I was close by when coaches talked to players in one-on-one sessions and afterwards when Pittman broke down the plans for the weekend in front of the complete squad.
What I saw was impressive. I think it’s the best Arkansas team since late in Bret Bielema’s second season. I recall walking off the practice field late in August practice when Bielema told me the defensive front could stop the run.