4/4 practice notes and observations

Football Insider Board
#1

  • Absent from practice: Audry Horn, Colton Jackson and Cheyenne O’Grady. O’Grady has been out since Saturday’s scrimmage with what Chad Morris described as a lower back injury. His status for the Red-White game is uncertain, but it seems unlikely to me that he’ll go. Horn has missed the entire spring and Jackson is out the remainder of spring with a knee injury. Mike Woods (wrist) was not dressed out and wearing a yellow jersey.

  • D’Vone McClure, who Morris said Tuesday was in concussion protocol, was in a standard white defense jersey and working with defensive backs. Tight end Chase Harrell, who was not present Tuesday, was back and in a green no-contact jersey. Silas Robinson and Drew Vest were both present and in the standard red offense jerseys. They were in green Tuesday and Morris said they would be out for the rest of spring drills last Saturday.

  • Others in green jerseys today: Micahh Smith (right wrist), Devwah Whaley (he caught passes from quarterbacks out of the backfield), Hayden Henry and Kirby Adcock. He was the lone offensive lineman in green.

  • Arkansas ran through its Attack Drill today for about five minutes, and players who reached the tackling dummy were Deon Edwards, Jackson Salley and Blake Kern. Redshirt freshman defensive back Nathan Parodi came close to touching the dummy, but I don’t think he quite got there.

  • Johnny Majors, defensive backs coach at Arkansas from 1964-67, was at practice today.

  • We’ll talk to players at 6:40 and get their thoughts on practice and the spring game.

#2

Johnny did more than coach the DBs. In 1967, he switched to the offensive backfield and coached quarterbacks. That was probably earned him a trip off of the Broyles staff. Johnny had never coached quarterbacks. In fact, Broyles had to teach him how to coach the center-quarterback exchange, that per Johnny when I interviewed him about five years ago. Johnny had played single wing QB (or tailback) at Tennessee. QBs took the direct snap 5 yards deep. That 67 team had a lot of trouble offensively. Frank took care of Johnny, though. He campaigned until he got the Iowa State job. He just wasn’t an offensive coach capable of calling plays, probably a much better defensive coach.

#3

So Clay, are you telling us that Ronnie South and John Eichler were probably better QB’s than they showed in 67. Perhaps only a quarterback whisperer away from greatness?

#4