FAYETTEVILLE — As football practice for Arkansas’ veterans wrapped up Sunday morning, all that remained was brief group meetings for the offense and the defense.
Coach Bobby Petrino, who typically yells out where on the practice fields the groups are to convene, shouted “Over on the North Forty!” to one of the groups, who hustled off to the north-south oriented 100-yard field.
Petrino can say “North Forty” now, as opposed to previous years, as the Razorbacks have opened fall camp on the sprawling University of Arkansas intramural fields, located across Razorback Road from Walton Arena and its parking lots.
The Razorbacks are working on the intramural fields because of infrastructure work in advance of the start of the football operations center taking place around the practice fields, and forbidding 120-degree field temperatures inside Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
In doing so, the football team has doubled the space available on its normal practice fields — between Reynolds Razorback Stadium and the Walker Pavilion. Because of their sloping grades and lessthan-100-yard lengths, in addition to block walls just beyond the end zones, Petrino hasn’t enjoyed working on the normal practice fields.
He spent much of the summer contemplating the terrains, the scheduled construction zones and the logistics of moving the practice operation, and elected to move down the road for the first couple of weeks of camp.
Pat Berger, director of sports turf operations for the university, said his staff swung into operation after a meeting that cinched the plan on June 29.
Berger’s crew aerated the roughly 7 acres of the intramural fields on June 30, then topdressed them for leveling and filling holes with eight dumptruck loads of sand — amounting to about 144 tons — over the next two days.
“They were in decent shape, but we wanted to make sure everything was right,” Berger said.
Since then, the fields have been fertilized twice, watered tremendously through one of the hottest, driest summers in recent memory, and set up for a Razorbacks team that has designs on another BCS Bowl appearance in 2011.
Petrino said the two 100-yard fields, one running northsouth and the other east-west, plus vast neutral ground between the two, have set up nicely.
“We have a great grounds crew, and they came out and worked extremely hard on it all summer, did an excellent job getting it in condition where we can practice,” he said.
“We were really looking for more room and to be able to have that type of space for all our individual drills, everything that we need to do to get better. It’s really nice.”
The Razorbacks have been gracious about the space they’re occupying.
“I heard this is where all the great intramural people play, so we’re honored,” said a smiling tailback Knile Davis. “It’s fun to be out here. The main thing was having space, and being on grass kept it cooler.”
Offensive coordinator Garrick McGee said the work on the spacious intramural fields should be a big help.
“We wanted to do it so we’ll have more room, so we can practice deep balls, expand our offense more, get our defensive backs to peddle and throw balls down the field so they can practice against deep balls,” McGee said.
Petrino said the intramural field practices will last until Aug. 17, after which the Razorbacks will resume work inside Reynolds Razorback Stadium, the Walker Pavilion and occasionally on the practice fields.
Arkansas players have seemingly found the bus rides up and down Razorback Road and the surface of the fields mostly enjoyable.
“It’s a good change of scenery, something new, and I like it,” defensive end Jake Bequette said. “I’ve always liked playing on grass. It feels like football.”
Receiver Greg Childs, who seemed a little tentative on cuts and footing the first day of practice, has moved into a higher gear on recent days.
Fellow receiver Jarius Wright termed the intramural fields acceptable — “But nothing can replace turf,” he said. “Turf is great to run on for a receiver.”
Berger, who said his staff has worked together with that of Bill Mock, associate director of intramural sports, hopes to hand the fields over in better shape for Arkansas students than when the football team got it.
“We went in and did what we do to Division I fields and took it to the intramural fields,” Berger said. “And if we could get a little rain it would help them.”
Sports, Pages 17 on 08/09/2011