Hogs will live in the shotgun

Arkansas quarterback Cole Kelley (15) goes through practice Thursday, March 1, 2018, in Fayetteville.

— Arkansas quarterbacks didn't take a single snap from under center during the Razorbacks' first scrimmage of the spring last Saturday.

Joe Craddock, Arkansas' first-year offensive coordinator, said not to mistake the Razorbacks' offense for one exclusive to the shotgun, but last Saturday did provide an indication of the preferred look for the new coaching staff under Chad Morris.

The Craddock/Morris offense is based in the shotgun and includes a number of draws and screens that feature the running backs, often in a two-back set. Craddock, who joined Morris at Arkansas after three seasons at SMU, said he prefers shotgun sets because they allow a quarterback and running backs to get a better pre-snap view of the defense.

According to Pro Football Focus, SMU ran 98 percent of its plays (985 of 1,004) out of the shotgun formation last season. The Mustangs ran 57 of those plays out of the pistol, a modified shotgun look in which the quarterback stands closer to the line of scrimmage, near where a fullback would stand in the I-formation.

SMU took only 19 snaps from under center.

"A lot of things you do in our scheme, the zone read schemes, you can't be under center and be a zone read," Craddock said. "You've got to be in the shotgun for that.

"We'll get under center at times, but right now we've only got about 10 percent of our offense (installed). As we go, you'll see a little more under center."

The shotgun base will be a change for Arkansas players who ran an I-formation base under former coordinators Jim Chaney and Dan Enos. It will be particularly different for the running backs, who predominantly ran behind a fullback and multiple tight ends out of the I-formation in the Chaney/Enos offenses.

In 2017, Arkansas' 839 offensive plays included 310 shotgun or pistol snaps, or about 37 percent.

"You have to slow down a little more," said Chase Hayden, a freshman last season, of running out of the shotgun. "With the zone schemes it's side to side and you have to find a hole. It's a little different in that you probably have to have a little better vision. You have to find the cracks in the defense."

For quarterbacks, the move to the shotgun is less foreign. Arkansas' frontline quarterbacks Ty Storey and Cole Kelley both operated in shotgun offenses in high school.

"That's something people are going to a little more," said Craddock, who noted less than 50 percent of NFL snaps were under center last year. "You can do more schemes out of the shotgun."

The design this spring is to install as much of the "base" offense as possible. The playbook was scaled back during last Saturday's scrimmage to challenge players' knowledge of the offense, providing a glimpse at who had been studying the most.

"It was a chance for us, when they stuck their face in the fan, to see exactly where they were," Morris said. "They had to think on their own. They had to respond on their own.

"It was a chance for our quarterbacks to focus in on some of the things they felt comfortable with....They actually came to Coach (Craddock) and put a list of what they felt the most comfortable with and play the fastest at doing."

Craddock said he expects to only have about 30 percent of the installation complete by the end of spring practice April 9. There is not as much of a rush to implement the playbook anymore because NCAA rules changed four years ago to allow coaches to spend two hours of instructional time with players each week during the summer months.

"We'll sit down this summer and have install meetings," Craddock said. "We can't go out on the field with the guys in the summer, but they'll go out there and do their own thing. It will get in. We'll continue to get better at the things we've done this spring and they will work on those this summer as well."

The key this spring is to learn what the players do best out of the shotgun.

"What do you want me to call when you're in there so you can go execute it? What are we going to hang our hat on when it's fourth-and-short, when it's third-and-5?" Craddock said. "We'll get our base in and we're comfortable with where we're at (now) with our base offense."