FAYETTEVILLE -- The last big mystery regarding the University of Arkansas' depth chart was solved a couple of minutes into Coach Chad Morris' season-opening news conference when he announced senior Ben Hicks as the starting quarterback.
Hicks, a two-year starter at SMU for Morris and offensive coordinator Joe Craddock in 2016-17, transferred in January and went through spring drills with the Razorbacks. He edged out junior transfer Nick Starkel, who arrived in the summer.
Morris said he met with the top quarterbacks Monday morning and shared his decision.
"I shared with them ... just, hey, there's going to be many opportunities through the course of this season," he said.
"Make sure that you're ready and you capture your opportunity."
Morris pointed to Hicks' vast knowledge of the system and his ability to help the team's young receivers as the clinching factors.
"We feel very confident in Ben and his complete, overall knowledge, as you would expect," Morris said. "Ben has been in this offense for three years, been here since January. Nick has been in this offense for three weeks. But to see the growth of what Nick has done for three weeks has been extremely impressive.
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"I think Ben has an incredible command for ... where everyone should be. We're going to play a lot of young guys. And that alone was the main deciding factor, is his ability to know where everybody's supposed to be, to get our offensive line in the right protection and do it at a pace to where the game, because of his experience, is a little bit slower."
Craddock, speaking shortly after Morris in the Smith Center media room, said Hicks had earned the starting assignment.
"He went out every day and led the guys," Craddock said. "Nick started with an uphill curve, honestly, because he got here a little later than Ben did. Ben went out and competed and did everything we asked him to do. He has a great understanding of the offense and where we're at, especially going out there with a lot of young guys."
Hicks, a 6-1, 217-pounder, had split time with the top unit in camp with Starkel, a 6-4, 214-pounder, who started five games as a redshirt freshman at Texas A&M in 2017, then came off the bench in four games as a sophomore last year.
"We feel that Ben gives us the best chance to win right now because he can really get everybody going in the right way," Craddock said. "He can make sure that if a freshman receiver is split out too wide or too tight he can be able to move him around and make protection calls and help the offensive line and help the running backs."
Morris and Craddock suggested Starkel would get playing time early in the season.
"We've definitely got to continue to get Nick's experience up," Morris said. "The game will dictate a lot [on quarterback decisions], but I do anticipate having an opportunity to play quarterbacks, additional quarterbacks."
Hicks is SMU's all-time leader with 9,081 passing yards, 71 touchdown passes and 12 300-yard passing games.
"When you talk about Ben, he's just a fiery competitor," Craddock said. "He hates to lose, he'll head-butt every offensive lineman at the very beginning of the game when we're in warm-ups. He's a fiery guy.
"People like Ben, people like Nick. They're both good quarterbacks that anybody would want to follow."
Starkel's height, high spin rate and arm strength have been considered plusses through training camp.
"I think from a skill set with Nick, he's got incredible arm strength, he's got the size, he's got decent speed," Morris said. "I think that his decision-making has been impressive during camp, especially trying to put this offense in in three weeks with him. He's a studier of the game."
Morris said Hicks' arm strength and accuracy were good.
"I think when you look at the overall breakdown of camp and the accuracy, I think he's just been accurate with it," Morris said. "Does the ball jump out of his hand like it does Nick? No. I think anybody can see that. I mean, watch them in the warm-up.
"But, I don't have to throw the ball and the ball jump out of my hand to be accurate. Accuracy is a big part of what we do, and while Nick is extremely accurate, Ben is, too."
Starkel went out with the first offense in Saturday's Beanie Bowl mock game, while Hicks went out with the twos.
"We really started talking about this in-depth Saturday night and led into Sunday," Morris said. "Beanie Bowl had nothing to do with it. Beanie Bowl was nothing more than a glorified game of moving on and off the field."
Craddock said there's a natural disappointment for the quarterback who doesn't get the nod.
"If you play this position at this level, everybody's competitive and wants to get out on the field and play, so it's obviously a little disappointing," Craddock said. "But I do think that Nick understands that he didn't play [much] last year and was very limited the year before due to injury. So we've got to get him ready. He's got to play. He's got to get some game experience, some game reps just in case."
Arkansas' offensive players have been careful not to declare a favorite in the quarterback race. The Razorbacks have to hope the quarterback play settles more quickly than it did last year, when Ty Storey and Cole Kelley alternated starts the first four games and wound up combining for 20 turnovers.
Morris also doled out praise for freshman quarterbacks John Stephen Jones and KJ Jefferson.
He said Jones has shown great progress in one year and is on track to having an "incredible career" at Arkansas.
"KJ Jefferson -- his athleticism as we've all seen, we all knew that coming in, and his play-making ability -- is well ahead of where we thought he would be as a true freshman ... in a short three-week camp. So his starting point was definitely much higher and his growth through camp has shown great promise."
Sports on 08/27/2019