UA coaches lay it on the line up front

FAYETTEVILLE — Along Arkansas’ offensive line, offensive coordinator Paul Petrino named only junior Travis Swanson a certain starter.

“Swanson will be the center,” Petrino said Thursday at the Arkansas coaches’ annual golf outing. “There’s no question.”

So if Swanson is the lone certain starter, junior All-SEC guard Alvin Bailey becomes the rare Outland Trophy candidate scrambling to start.

“You know what, though, they are all fighting for their jobs,” offensive line coach Chris Klenakis said. “That is my approach and my attitude to create competition, and competition makes you better. That’s how you find out about guys.

“Two years ago I was having Swanson run with the first-group even though there was a returning starter [Seth Oxner], and people said, ‘What are you doing?’ Well, you created a little competition and found out this Swanson kid can play some pretty good football, too.”

Swanson beat out Oxner for the 2010 starting job. He comes into the start of preseason practice on the watch lists for the Rimington Award, which goes to the nation’s most outstanding center, and the Outland Trophy, which goes to the nation’s outstanding lineman.

Bailey, a fourth-year junior, has put together two outstanding seasons starting every game and is also on the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award watch lists.

However, when Bailey didn’t pick up the pace at the outset of spring drills, Bobby Petrino - since fired and replaced after spring drills by John L. Smith - Klenakis and Paul Petrino put him second team behind sophomore reserve letterman Luke Charpentier.

The coaches bank on Bailey battling back, which he began doing toward the close of spring drills.

But they still proclaim no givens.

“Charpentier stepped up last spring and really gave Bailey a bunch of competition there,” Paul Petrino said. “That’s good when you have that.”

Even if Bailey reclaims his strong side guard spot, Charpentier could still be a starting guard. It doesn’t matter which side they have played, Klenakis just wants his best guards and tackles on the line when it’s time to lay it on the line.

He has some guys who have paid their dues, like fifth-year senior starting weak side guard Tyler Deacon of Little Rock Christian, a walk-on center upon his 2008 arrival, and fourth-year junior David Hurd, who will open fall drills as a first-team tackle on scholarship after walking on at the beginning of his career.

Freshman guard Marcus Danenhauer of Bentonville paid his dues while redshirting last fall, as did freshman tackle Grady Ollison of Malvern.

“I was really happy with David Hurd’s spring,” Klenakis said. “Tyler Deacon has come a long way. They are program guys, guys who have come into your program and worked and gotten stronger and gotten better and become technicians and students of the game and just worked hard and made themselves into good players.”

Senior tackle Jason Peacock, an incumbent starter, begins fall drills battling sophomore Brey Cook of Springdale Har-Ber for a tackle spot with sophomore redshirt Chris Stringer and Ollison competing.

“Any time you can get that competition, that’s the best thing you can have,” Petrino said. “That beats the coaches yelling at them when they have pressure to compete every single day to be a starter.”