State of the Hogs: Free fall into the abyss

Arkansas coach Chad Morris is shown on the sideline during a game against Western Kentucky on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019, in Fayetteville.

— Cole Kelley, Ty Storey, Connor Noland, Ben Hicks, Nick Starkel and now John Stephen Jones received starts at quarterback for Arkansas coach Chad Morris over the last two seasons. KJ Jefferson might be the next Razorbacks starting quarterback, for someone else.

None could lift the Razorbacks out of college football’s abyss under Morris. Hunter Yurachek’s charge is to find someone who can build a team to support such quarterbacks.

After Storey helped Western Kentucky bludgeon Arkansas 45-19 on Saturday, Morris provided the media with the scoop on why the team is in the abyss, just about 20 hours before he was packing in his office after the end of his coaching time in the Ozarks.

Just for clarification, Webster defines abyss: a bottomless pit. And, that’s not where Morris said the Hogs sit. That’s me.

The Hogs are in a free fall with no end in sight. They’ve lost to Colorado State, North Texas, San Jose State and Western Kentucky under Morris. They were 4-18 under Morris, 0-14 in the SEC. An interim coach has an open date, then LSU and Missouri. It will probably be ugly.

It was time for Morris to go. Some had been saying it since the loss to Colorado State and North Texas in the first month of his first season. Maybe they were right. Maybe, like they said, Frank Broyles would have fired him then.

Wherever Morris thinks the Hogs are sitting as he heads out the door, he at least confirmed they might be there quite a bit longer.

“It’s going to take some time,” he said. “It’s not an overnight fix. We’ve seen that over the last two years. We are all frustrated, incredibly frustrated.”

It may not be an overnight fix, but it can be fixed and Arkansas can win in the SEC. I point to two games against Texas A&M, one each against LSU, Ole Miss and Kentucky as examples. Morris was close in all five of those and it’s reasonable to assume that a coach can be found to upgrade his staff just enough to get those sort of games in the win column.

I see examples of winning in the SEC all across the Arkansas athletic department. Football may be one of the few sports that is not competitive and it’s not like the conference is weak in other sports.

Some in the media were surprised to even see Morris walk into the interview room after the Western Kentucky game. They thought it might be Yurachek. They speculated that there would be an immediate termination.

But that’s not his style. This AD handles termination with releases, probably the same as what I’d do in these times where everything is done with Twitter or electronic messages.

Morris answered tough questions a little better than in the past few weeks when he’s sometimes been terse and evasive. He sounded committed to the rebuild, noting the main area of deficiency.

“We need depth in the defensive line and the offensive line, both sides of the ball,” Morris said. “It’s a line of scrimmage league.”

That was partly to answer the question about the inability to stop the run. Western Kentucky entered the game averaging just 107.6 yards rushing, 122nd nationally. The Hilltoppers pummeled the Hogs with 265 on the ground, mostly between the tackles.

Storey was flawless in the execution of all phases of quarterback play. It was the kind of run-pass stuff that was supposed to the bread-and-butter of the Morris offense — stuff the Arkansas staff couldn’t get him to do smoothly.

Storey was never close to being sacked while completing 22 of 32 passes for 213 yards. He completed a 69-yard touchdown bomb, but mostly it was precision short passing.

Storey foiled the two UA linebackers, De’Jon Harris and Bumper Pool, with 17 QB keepers for 77 yards. His back-to-back, straight ahead touchdown runs of 9 and 1 yards extended the WKU lead to 28-7 midway of the second quarter.

By then, it was clear the Hilltoppers could not be stopped. They did not punt in the first half on the way to a 35-7 lead. Western Kentucky converted 7 of 12 on third down, and all five on fourth down.

Western Kentucky led in time of possession, 20:59 to 9:01, in the first half. It was almost even in the third quarter when the Hilltoppers went with fewer passes. They still finished the second half with a 1:56 edge in time of possession.

Storey’s story is inspiring, unless you are a Razorback fan. The Charleston product dreamed of playing for the Hogs, but left last January when Arkansas coaches made it known they were going after graduate transfer quarterbacks, Hicks and Starkel. He was allowed to transfer without any begging from Morris.

Maybe Storey would have struggled with this offensive line and this porous defense, but he looked like a Heisman candidate with an unheralded WKU cast.

Storey took over as WKU’s starter in Week 4 and has been lights out ever since. He was at 70 percent until slipping a little last week and hit 68.5 against the Hogs.

Too bad Storey couldn’t have done this against the Hogs several weeks ago and ended all of this sooner. But maybe he needed for Arkansas to be deeper into the abyss and the Hilltoppers rolling for this Perfect Storm to hit Fayetteville.

As far as the inept Arkansas passing game, Jones (3 of 10) and Jefferson (6 of 15) were a combined 34.6 percent. They had some passes dropped, but there was also a Jefferson TD pass wiped out by a holding penalty. On the same possession, Jefferson’s fourth-down completion to Treylon Burks was just beyond the end line.

There is no disputing the lack of Arkansas line depth. And, Morris is correct that it’s now a full scale “youth movement.” He noted it’s a tough task to ask 18-year-olds to handle the bulk of the playing.

Before Saturday, the Hogs had used freshmen or sophomores in 49 percent of the starts this season. That’s the most since 2008 under Bobby Petrino.

Upperclassmen have started 51 percent of the time this season. In Petrino’s great seasons of 2011 (11-2) and 2010 (10-3) upperclassmen got 72.4 and 73.1 percent of the snaps, respectively.

There are some things that are tough to explain, like only giving the ball to your best back infrequently. Rakeem Boyd scored on touchdown runs of 76 and 86 yards, but only got six other carries.

Boyd did up his season total to 1,005 yards. He averages 6.7 yards per carry and has scored eight of the team’s 24 touchdowns.

There were several mentions of Boyd’s lack of carries in the interview room, both when Morris was questioned and when Boyd was at the microphone.

Boyd’s responses were most telling. He said, “With only eight, I tried to make something happen.”

Morris said time of possession and trying to play catch up were factors in Boyd’s number of carries.

There were lots of tough questions for Morris, including whether or not he’s the “guy for the job?” That’s when the issues of talent and depth came up.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I am the guy, no question. I knew it would take time. I knew it was going to be a process, recruiting and development, especially in this conference.”

But Western Kentucky is not in the SEC. The Hilltoppers are in Conference USA. They had lost to Central Arkansas, 35-28, in their opener. They are 6-4 overall, 4-2 in C-USA.

Asked about that, Morris said, “We are very disappointed. Give them credit.”

Morris found Storey in the post-game handshakes to offer congratulations.

“I talked to him,” Morris said. “I told him I was proud of him.”

Morris thought his freshman quarterbacks, Jones and Jefferson, competed admirably.

“I thought they did really good,” Morris said. “As they grow, they will get better.”

Jefferson likely would have started the second half but took a hit to his left shoulder on the final play of the first half.

“It was a shoulder, and they shot it up at halftime,” Morris said. “(The pain medicine) took a little while to take over.”

Those two get an open date to polish and learn a little more in the offense, now clearly to be operated in a slower fashion. Morris was asked about the lack of “hammer down,” and “up tempo,” as he promised when he took the job. He promised an explosive offense.

“We want to be the most explosive offense, as we mentioned,” he said. “But we don’t want to go out there with speed and then put the defense right back out there.

“We knew it was going to be a rebuild. We knew about the (strength) of the other SEC programs. But we knew what we needed (to recruit) in the (right) footprint, and that’s one of the reasons I got the job.”

There were questions to the three players who came to the interview room if Morris was the right coach to lead the Hogs. Boyd was the only one to answer.

“Yes,” Boyd said. “We have to keep fighting and keep our pride.”

That the other two didn’t respond might have meant something, but it doesn’t really matter now. No one will ask those questions anymore.

Since losing the lead in the fourth quarter against Kentucky, there doesn’t seem much of that. Effort has waned.

Sophomore Bumper Pool knows the effort wasn’t there. As far as accountability, he challenged every player to “look in the mirror.”

Can you see the abyss in the mirror? You can see nothing in a bottomless pit.

I’ll join those who ached for Morris to be fired after North Texas. At least you don’t see Chad Morris anymore. A termination is not like a shot with pain killer. It takes effect immediately.