FAYETTEVILLE — For the first seven practices of preseason camp, Arkansas’ defense has seemingly been winning the turnover battle with numerous takeaways each day with a high of six.
But during Saturday’s first camp scrimmage it was the offense taking control in that department with only two over the course of 175 plays.
“As far as turnovers today, I see there were two,” Arkansas head coach Chad Morris. “I know that our (defensive) goal is to get three. That’s something we’ve been placing a huge emphasis on, because if we can create turnovers, we can win a lot of football games.”
The turnovers came via a Montaric “Buster” Brown interception and a Zach Williams fumble recovery.
Arkansas offensive coordinator Joe Craddock both dismissed and embraced the turnover talk, which became a big deal to the players in the spring when a championship belt was given to the offense or defense after every practice.
“The offense comes to work everyday,” Craddock said. “I love those guys, I tell them every practice I love them. You really want to talk about the belt and that kind of stuff. It’s really about the fact that there are a lot of plays being played. There are a lot of statistics that are kind of stacked against us.
“I love that. I have no problem with that because all that matters is when we got Portland State (in the season opener) out there, the first game we gotta be ready to go. That’s all that matters to me. “…We’ve been working extremely hard.”
Arkansas committed a turnover every 31 plays during an 810-snap season in 2018, a mark that Craddock used to say the offense is vastly improved in preseason camp to this point.
“I counted before today, we’ve run a 1,034 snaps of things that we’re counting turnovers and doing all those things and we’ve had 17,” Craddock said. “That puts us at one out of every 61 plays and 1.6 percent.
“We’re never going to accept turnovers in this program. Never. But, when we get to that (turnover percentage per plays) and we were 129 (out of 130 Division I schools) last year, you look at that and it puts us in the top 30.
“So, if we can do that and continue to keep harping on that, we’re going to be pretty good. I’ll say it again, turnovers are never going to be accepted in this program. We’ve got to continue to work on that and we will over the next couple of weeks until we get ready for fall camp.”
Conversely, Arkansas defensive coordinator John Chavis was not pleased with just two turnovers in 175 plays.
“That's not good enough,” Chavis said. “We put a lot of emphasis on it. We spend a lot of time working on technique. We don't expect turnovers to just happen. We expect to force them. Occasionally you're gonna get a gift, but there's so much you have to work on. There's a technique in getting the ball out and we work on that.
“But the biggest thing is when it's really working well is when our players really believe in it. Sometimes when you are out there in your 60th or 70th play it's a little tougher to remember those techniques. You always go back to your training. We feel it's important particularly where football is at today. In terms of a lot of fast paced offense.”
Chavis knows an opportunistic defense is a better one.
“There's a few things we're gonna hang our hat on,” Chavis said. “There's a lot of things can certainly can affect the game for us defensively to be able to affect the game. The easiest and best way is turnovers. If we can average three turnovers a ball game we'll be the No. 1 ball team in the nation no question about that.
“We set that goal here for that reason. We didn't reach that today. We have been good thus far in preseason. Maybe, not maybe, I'm sure the offense has been working on protecting the ball and keeping the ball. They did a great job of that today. We had our opportunities we just didn't capitalize on it.”
Morris said there were no limitations on the defense or offense today and that there was no belt awarded just yet.
“No belt today,” Morris said. “We’ll go through grading the film and give it out after that. As far as limitations defensively, no. No limitations. Nor was it offensively, either. We wanted to see and we wanted to get after each other.”
Chavis noted that senior defensive tackle McTelvin “Sosa” Agim and senior linebacker De’Jon Harris are leading in both disrupting the offense into turnovers and being coaches on the field.
“Let me put it in these terms, right now those two are developing into some of the best leaders I've been around,” Chavis said. “You give them those opportunities to do that and to be a leader. They are not afraid to talk to their teammates and not afraid to do those things.
“It has always been my philosophy. I've talked about it, I don't know if I've talked about it in here, but I've talked about it in our meetings we want our seniors and we want older guys to be able to teach the young guys. When they teach it and they understand what's going on even better. When you can teach it you've got a better understanding.
“They're still growing and now they know some of the why's. Why we do it this way. This is why we teach this. They get a better feel for it and it makes your team better. When you've got guys that can teach at each position that's when.”