FAYETTEVILLE — By the end of the last season, Arkansas sophomore Ryan Pulley had asserted himself as the Razorbacks’ best overall cornerback.
Pulley (6-0, 200) spent the off-season and the first seven practices of spring football trying to build on that momentum.
“You have to keep grinding,” Pulley said. “That is a big part of it. I don’t look forward to all the accolades and all that stuff. I just focus on now and I am just trying to get it and grind out.”
Pulley started 12 of his team’s 13 games last season with 47 tackles, 13 pass break ups, a fumble recovery and two interceptions - one which he returned for a 25-yard touchdown against Texas State and the other 50 yards in the Belk Bowl loss to Virginia Tech.
“Ryan is a very athletic corner, a very gifted corner, but he’s got really good ball skills,” Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema said. “He probably leads our team in interceptions in practice as well. He just has a way of finding the football.”
Pulley had 10 tackles and one interception while playing in 12 games as a true freshman with one start, but the opportunity for more playing time came available as a sophomore when Kevin Richardson was injured in fall practice.
“My freshman year watching the guys in front of me and then K-Rich got injured so I had to grow up and step in at the beginning of the season,” Pulley said. “I progressed as the season went on and I just did what I had to do on the field.”
While Pulley - who prepped at Fort Myers, Fla. Island Coast - is not that vocal usually on he field, Arkansas quarterback Austin Allen says it is easy to know when he makes a play in practice.
“Yes, I make sure everybody knows about it when I make a play,” Pulley said. “I just keep grinding and grinding away. I am just trying to be the best I can honestly.”
Pulley is trying to become more of a vocal leader for others.
“I am trying,” Pulley said. “I wasn’t really a vocal leader, but I am tying to bring guys with me and lead them as much as I can to come with me.”
Pulley is one of several players working at cornerback this spring for Arkansas with Henre’ Toliver, Nate Dalton, Richardson and Britto Tutt (also injured last year), Byron Keaton as well as true freshman Korey Hernandez.
“We have got a lot of depth back there now and I think we have four more coming in,” Pulley said. “…If somebody goes down, we've got the next person to go in.”
That group was hampered some on Saturday as they were not allowed to tackle below the waist.
“Probably a little bit when you can’t tackle below the waist because we would have gotten some of those running backs down, but that is just teaching us how to tackle and be better tacklers,” Pulley said. “You have got to get high on some positions. like on the goal line you have to be able to hit high.”
Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen tossed a defender out the spring game last Saturday for targeting, which injured an offensive player.
“We don’t think like that,” Pulley said. “We just play football. Like when we scrimmage on Saturday, we don’t plan on going out there and hurting our teammates, but it is football and it is a physical sport. You got to play how you get it.”
Last Saturday’s scrimmage was over 130 plays, which is a long one under Bielema.
“We knew because we have got a new defense and we want to get going with that,” Pulley said. “We prepared for it before that, about two weeks before, so we did pretty good.”
He knows full well that Arkansas’ defense finished the year on a bad note while losing two halftime leads.
“The whole defense has actually got to finish, but for me myself my goal is to finish during the season,” Pulley said.
Arkansas moved secondary coach Paul Rhoads into the defensive coordinator role this season.
“It is pretty much the same,” Pulley said. “He is playing attention to the whole defense, but mainly his focus is on us in the back end when we are out there practicing.”