He didn’t make second or third team Preseason All-SEC vote by the league’s coaches, but senior defensive back Michael Grant may prove every bit as important to Arkansas as his five defensive teammates so honored.

That’s provided Grant’s surgically repaired knee proves it can withstand contact once the Razorbacks don full pads in preseason drills.

They report Thursday and begin drills Saturday.

Speculation is it will hold up fine considering how well Grant performed doing everything but full contact last spring. Reports abound of him continuing to improve rapidly during the summer voluntary workouts.

Last year’s starting free safety, Grant tore his ACL nine games into 2006.

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The Hogs were 8-1 in Grant’s nine starts and 2-3 without him.

In the three closing losses to LSU in Little Rock, Florida at the SEC Championship game in Atlanta, and Wisconsin in the Capital One Bowl game in Orlando, Nutt and defensive coordinator Reggie Herring can point to plays that maybe wouldn’t have gone for touchdowns or such long gains had Grant’s track speed been there to catch the playmaker.

Grant ran the leadoff leg to world-class sprinters Wallace Spearmon Jr., Tyson Gay and Omar Brown winning the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships 4 x 100 relay for John McDonnell’s Razorbacks in a UA record 38. 49.

Grant’s speed is a luxury to potential safety greatness. However, that speed may be a necessity for him to return to cornerback, his original position.

All-SEC corner Chris Houston is gone a year early to the NFL and 2006 senior corner Darius Vinnett graduated.

“ He’s the fastest we’ve got, ” Herring said of keeping options pending developments at safety and corner.

Your basic radical With Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Andre Ware as his nationally renowned pupil, John Jenkins was the nation’s spread offense guru in the late 1980 s and early ‘ 90 s with his run and shoot that he first coordinated and then head coached at the University of Houston. Funny thing, said the former Razorback (in the early 1970 s Jenkins played both football for Frank Broyles and baseball for Norm DeBriyn ) his then radically unorthodox run and shoot offense was born from the sound, tried and true principles that Broyles always stressed on defense and the kicking game. Now a scout in the Canadian Football League, Jenkins came through Fayetteville last week and handed Broyles an excerpt of the old Razorback playbook. It included Broyles’ “ Four Don’ts of the Kicking Game”: “ Don’t be offsides, don’t rough the kicker, don’t let the ball hit the ground and thou shall not clip” and the emphasis of containing kick returns to the 20 and keeping the opposing offense bottled if backed to its 20 or less.

Jenkins said he never parted with that playbook or its principles.

“ Make your opponent start inside in the 20, ” Jenkins said, “ and his chances of scoring... ”

Broyles interrupted, “ Are one in 10. Five years of ball possessions and we would average it up and they would score one out of every 10 when starting from the 20 or back. ”

“ Right, ” Jenkins said, “ The field position principles you always preached. If you can make these guys start from 80 yards away, they will screw it up themselves with busted assignments, penalties and whatever. ”

Those principles, Jenkins asserted, led him to developing his wide open offense.

“ If you are satisfied with three yards a play your own mistakes will catch up to you, ” Jenkins said. “ If you are in the wishbone or I-formation sweep or whatever and only gaining three yards, that’s going to happen. ”

Hence his different offensive approach.

“ The design of my own offense, what I called the freewheeling zone between the 20 and the 20, you need big plays, ” Jenkins said. “ So the passing game, and attacking defenses we were talking plays that would take big plays at 15 and 20 yards a whack, where you are not putting 18-play drives together. And naturally, as long as you are not throwing interceptions, you are in scoring range just like that. ”

Of course there’s a rebuttal versus Jenkins on ball control’s behalf.

Ken Hatfield’s 1989 Razorbacks, by then switched from the wishbone to an explosive but still ball-control I-formation with quarterback Quinn Grovey, running backs James Rouse and Barry Foster and receivers Derek Russell and Tim Horton, beat the Jenkins-coordinated, Warequarterbacked Cougars, 45-39 in Little Rock.

It still ranks among the best-ever Razorback games.

Nate Allen covers the Razorback for the Northwest Arkansas Times.