FAYETTEVILLE -- A man with a full-tilt boogie, hammer-down philosophy toward football isn't going to pit his starters against the third team in a lot of scrimmage situations.
That's not the Chad Morris plan.
When the Arkansas Razorbacks conduct the first significant scrimmage of the Morris era today, the plan is to pair the best players against each other in large part.
"I don't know if you call it ones-on-ones, it's what we think is the best 11 today," Morris said when asked if he liked to pit his first offense against his first defense.
"It's all good on good. We are absolutely all about good on good and it is wide open. You've heard me say it, it's full-tilt boogie out there, man. It's live."
Spring practice No. 5 of 15 this morning will cap the second week of spring drills for the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and will feature the longest stretches of live tackling yet. The scrimmage, scheduled to be closed to the public but open to the media, will take place on the UA practice fields or inside Walker Pavilion if inclement weather intrudes.
The Razorbacks will not be working inside Reynolds Razorback Stadium at all this spring due to ongoing construction on the north end zone project, so their only stadium work of the spring will come in the Red-White game on April 7 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
The scrimmage work is likely to rotate between natural grass and turf fields.
"One full scrimmage we're on the turf, one full scrimmage on the grass," Morris said. "We try to rotate it back and forth.
"We won't be in [Razorback Stadium] until -- hopefully we get in there and get in a couple of scrimmages before the season opens up. That's kind of the plan."
The Razorbacks went through their first wave of installation over the first three practices, so today's scrimmage will come at a mid-point of the second phase of putting in the schemes.
Defensively, Arkansas is headed back to a base 4-3 after going with a 3-4 front last season.
"We just got finished putting some install in and running out on the practice field," linebacker Dre Greenlaw said Tuesday. "It felt good. I really like the 4-3 and I think it's going to bring good change."
In discussing the quarterback play -- led by sophomore Cole Kelley and junior Ty Storey -- during the first week of drills, which Morris described as "some good and some bad," he spoke of the advancement he'd like to see today.
"This time next week is when I really want to have a pretty good assessment and a pretty good judgment on where we are from a quarterback standpoint coming out of our first full scrimmage this time next Saturday," he said last week.
Kelley and Storey both spoke glowingly about the new offensive system on Tuesday.
"Just because when I started in high school football I was in an offense very similar to this and I like being in the 'Gun better," Kelley said. "I think I've picked it up pretty well. We're still in the early stages of it so I'm picking it up really well right now."
Said Storey, "I love it. Just being able to go up-tempo, especially for a quarterback, you can kind of get in a rhythm.
"It's been kind of my third offense I'm trying to learn. I learned a little of coach [Jim] Chaney's when he was here. So kind of getting back to the basics and learning the formations and going through that, I kind of like that stuff. It's been kind of cool over the break to learn the new offense and try to master it."
Winter conditioning work was tailored for the Razorbacks to be able to play faster and hold up to a larger number of offensive snaps, which could also translate to more time on the field for the defense.
Morris said he wanted the defense to come out of spring with a grasp of coordinator John Chavis' more aggressive schemes and to be a fundamentally sound tackling team.
"I want to become a great tackling team," he said. "I want when they finish playing us -- right, wrong, indifferent, whatever the outcome of that scoreboard is -- I want people to say, 'That team tackles extremely well. They do a great job of tackling.'
"Well, how you learn to tackle is you have to practice tackling. You have to be physical at practice. And so you're going to see some of that."
Morris said he isn't looking for completely clean execution, just steady improvement.
"Are we going to be perfect on the 10th?" Morris asked last Saturday. "Absolutely not."
Sports on 03/10/2018