FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Razorbacks will be walking into frigid air when they resume spring football drills at 8:25 a.m. Tuesday.
The projected temperature for the start of spring practice No. 6 will be 33 degrees with winds gusting to 15 mph, a strong combination to send the Razorbacks inside Walker Pavilion for the resumption of the 15 practices of spring.
The weather was much milder when the Hogs conducted a 72-play scrimmage at Reynolds Razorback Stadium on March 14 to lead into Spring Break.
While the defense made the bulk of the big plays in that mini-scrimmage, the offense had its moments, notably at 61-yard touchdown pass from Taylen Green to Isaiah Sategna with the top units matched up, and wideout Davion Dozier’s leaping, one-hand backhand grab for a 19-yard touchdown from Malachi Singleton.
“It was a really super throw,” fifth-year Coach Sam Pittman said to describe Green’s deep ball to Sategna. “He was running to his left and put it right on the money.”
The Razorbacks have suffered only a few minor injuries through the first five practices, most notably sophomore tight end Luke Hasz’s sprained ankle from stepping on the foot of tailback Dominique Johnson in practice No. 5.
Pittman said he has emphasized a more rugged brand of football in this spring session than last year.
“I wanted a physical football team,” he said. “I don’t believe that you can be physical if you don’t do something physical. Going back to that, you might say, ‘Well, why didn’t you do it before?’
“We have done it. But the one spring I didn’t we had a veteran team. I knew what we had, things like that. It’s the same way with the weight room. I thought it was harder this year than it’s ever been. You can’t become tough unless you do tough things.”
New offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino’s units had solid successes in the early practices this spring, largely against zone concepts.
The Razorbacks will be implementing new schemes on both sides of the ball as they enter the third week in the spring, which began with an NCAA-allowed walkthrough Monday after the players reported over the weekend.
“We’ve got a whole different defensive front that we’re going to look at,” Pittman said. “We need to. We’re going to run it.
“We’re going to go run a little bit of an ‘odd’ package when we come back. Not personnel-wise. In other words, not taking a defensive end off and just finding that buck linebacker that we’re going to need to have.
“We don’t have quite as many D-linemen as we did last year.”
Pittman said the Razorbacks looked at defensive end Landon Jackson in an inside spot in some of their packages before Spring Break.
“We did that on third down,” Pittman said. “He’s 285 pounds, so he’ll be able to do that, especially on [pass] rush downs. And you could feel him out there in that third-down situation.”