FAYETTEVILLE — Second-year University of Arkansas football Coach Chad Morris framed the narrative for his Razorbacks in his first news conference of training camp.
Speaking late in the evening on Aug. 2, Morris passed along snippets to members of the media of what he had told his team after players officially reported for camp the night before.
“We talked a lot about the culture of our football program and where we are and how fragile it is and the time and the energy and the effort that’s gone into this football program and the way we do things, and how we’re going to beat teams that we’re not supposed to beat,” Morris said. “Nobody’s giving little ol’ Arkansas any credit, and that’s OK. They shouldn’t. We have to earn it.”
The Razorbacks, coming off a 2-10 season and the program’s second winless SEC campaign in six years, are projected to finish last in the SEC West again by media members who voted at SEC media days.
But hope springs eternal on every college campus this time of year. The Razorbacks are no exception.
Like their fresh, vivid-green natural grass surface at Reynolds Razorback Stadium, the Arkansas football program is looking for a new start to bury the recent pain.
“It’s in the past. We’re not worried about 2-10,” senior defensive end Gabe Richardson said. “We’re continuing to push forward. We want to be the best team we possibly can be going into 2019.”
Arkansas enters the season on an 11-game SEC losing streak and is unlikely to be favored in any conference game unless circumstances change.
Morris and Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek say improvement will be on display this fall.
“I promise you this is not the same football team that sat in this room last year,” Yurachek said at the program’s annual kickoff luncheon Aug. 16 in Rogers. “We’ll all see proof of that in two weeks.”
Morris would not project a win total for the Hogs, but he said progress on the culture was evident inside the program all through last year.
“We’re going to play football a little bit better, I promise you,” Morris said at the kickoff luncheon. “We’re growing this program into something extremely powerful and something extremely successful. We’re going to build a winning program that’s going to sustain time.”
The oddsmakers have not bought in as much as the Razorbacks.
The Hogs’ odds of winning the SEC are so slim in some quarters that they joined Missouri, which is currently ineligible for the SEC championship due to NCAA violations, as the only two SEC teams who were not given odds to claim the title by the site BetOnline.
“We’ve got to go get it,” junior tailback Rakeem Boyd said. “[Morris] was basically saying they’re not just going to give us the respect, we’ve got to earn it. At this point, that’s what is on the line. It’s the respect.”
Said senior tailback Devwah Whaley: “Man, just going out there and proving people wrong, that’s all we can do. Obviously we’re being doubted. But at the end of the day, we just have to focus on each other, focus on this team and this program, and keep going in the right direction.”
Tight ends coach Barry Lunney Jr., the former Arkansas quarterback, said last season serves as motivation.
“We’ve talked a lot about it,” he said. “We’ve all seen teams that had to carry that weight in the offseason and use that as fuel, and I think we certainly have. I think we are a better football team for it, and hopefully that will show up when we get out there.”
The Razorbacks should be favored in all four nonconference games, all of which are at home against Group of 5 or FCS opponents. Since three of those nonconference games come in the first month of the season — along with a road trip to Ole Miss in Week 2 — the Razorbacks have a chance to build confidence and momentum, which they were denied last season after back-to-back losses at Colorado State and to North Texas.
Most analysts peg the Razorbacks’ win total between four and six games.
The Arkansas roster has undergone a substantial overhaul in Morris’ 20 months, with at least 27 scholarship players with eligibility remaining either transferring, being dismissed, leaving early for the NFL Draft or retiring from football.
The roster is loaded with young talent, with 74 players checking in as freshmen or sophomores. Of the 20 seniors on the roster, 11 have played their entire career at Arkansas: McTelvin Agim, De’Jon Harris, Deon Stewart, Connor Limpert, Whaley, Hayden Johnson, T.J. Smith, Austin Capps, Colton Jackson, Cheyenne O’Grady and Jamario Bell.
The statistics from 2018 were ugly. The Razorbacks ranked 117th nationally in total offense with 336 yards per game, and 79th in total defense with 413 yards allowed per game.
Their 21.7 points per game tied for 113th, and their 34.8 points allowed per game was 108th.
Arkansas’ turnover margin of minus-10 tied for 119th out of 129 FBS programs, so ball security on offense and racking up takeaways on defense were a big priority this offseason.
“There’s a lot of things that certainly can affect the game for us defensively,” defensive coordinator John Chavis said. “The easiest and best way is turnovers. If we can average three turnovers a ballgame, we’ll be the No. 1 ball team in the nation, no question about that.”
The Hogs’ special teams were mostly a mess with long touchdowns allowed in three consecutive games and assorted other miscues along the way.
That’s a lot to clean up in one offseason.
But the arrival of graduate transfer quarterbacks Ben Hicks and Nick Starkel and the natural improvements that come with playing faster and understanding the concepts in the second year of a system have Arkansas fans hopeful their Hogs are bouncing back from rock bottom.
Morris and his staff used the term “every” to motivate during the offseason, as in everything matters, everything must be earned, every drill, every meal, every rep, every snap, every post-practice recovery period is important.
He also asked the simple question of why they do what they do.
“We had an opportunity to really have some open conversations of ‘Why?’ The talking time of this season is over,” Morris said. “Why do we want to do this? Why do we want to flip the script on Arkansas football? Why do we want to change the course or trajectory now? Why? I asked them to talk. There was some great dialogue. I’m excited about their why.”
Defensive ends coach Steve Caldwell is sold on the defense’s improvement.
“We’re better right now than we were this time last year,” he said at the midpoint of camp. “I believe that. Now how much, we’re going to have to wait until we get into live-game situations. That’s hard to tell.
“We’ve got to play aggressive. We’ve got to stop the run. That’s our No. 1 priority.”
Agim did Caldwell one better.
“It has gotten a lot better,” Agim said. “You can tell guys are flying around, guys know the defense, guys are more comfortable with the defense.”
Speaking this summer, freshman receiver Trey Knox spoke about why he and the rookies took a chance on a 2-10 team.
“I believe in what Coach Morris is trying to do,” Knox said. “I know we have to start somewhere. We’re starting on the ground but eventually we’re going to end up at the top. I want to be a part of that process of being back dominant, ranked, Top 25, bowl games every year, that type of thing.”
A bowl game is Arkansas’ minimum aim, and team leaders say the buy in is complete.
“We’ve been building since [Morris] got here last year,” Harris said at SEC media days. “I always respect Coach Morris. It didn’t take much for me to buy in. I’m going to do the right things. If I’m doing the right thing helping build this program, everybody else will follow me.”