FAYETTEVILLE -- The college football programs that make the wisest use of their time during the coronavirus lull stand to have an edge when in-person meetings and on-the-field activities resume.
The Arkansas Razorbacks might have been behind some of their SEC brethren in on-field knowledge of their players by virtue of having a first-year staff. But Coach Sam Pittman and his assistants are determined that when activities resume they can practice their first-time installation with a strong background in the schemes based on what they're doing now.
The NCAA has allowed limited time for "virtual" meetings online the past three weeks -- two hours the first week, which was doubled to four hours the past couple of weeks. That online instruction time is being doubled again to eight hours per week, starting Monday, through the end of May.
"Without being on the grass with our kids ... we can install the whole playbook," Arkansas offensive coordinator Kendal Briles said on a Friday teleconference. "We've got enough time we can get that done. But can we execute it?"
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Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom said he thinks he's become a better teacher with the extended virtual meetings as opposed to the normal 15 practices of spring ball.
"Defensively, we've got more in right now than probably we would if we were finishing up spring practice," Odom said. "We've been heavy on the install and ... we'll go back and start re-teaching that."
Odom and Briles both praised Pittman for how he's structured the work for coaches and how the coaches impart their plans to the players.
"I can't give Coach Pittman enough praise on how he's handled this," Odom said. "There's a lot of things that come your way as a head coach that they didn't give you a handbook on how to do it.
"He's been awesome, and he's provided leadership at every turn of what has gone on. It's really provided a calmness around our organization and a direct plan of, 'This is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it, now let's go to work.' "
Said Briles: "Coach Pittman has been unbelievable as a leader, providing us with the details on a day-to-day basis of what we want to get done and having a plan to go out and execute it. It's been good. Everybody is on the same page. This is a new job and a new journey for all of us."
The first week of virtual instruction, the position coaches spent 30 minutes, four days a week in video conferencing with their units and Pittman would pop in briefly. The second two weeks, Pittman provided unifying messages to start the daily hour of instruction Monday through Thursday.
Now further possibilities are open up for training. Odom, who coaches the safeties, can spend even more time with the full defense. Briles, who handles the quarterbacks, can have time to do more wide-angle approaches with the full offense.
"We talked about it this morning as a staff, how we want to handle the rule with gaining four more hours a week," Briles said. "Just try to make sure that we're not ... what we don't want to do is hold these kids to the fire when there's not something we can be teaching at that point."
Part of the process has been giving players tests on the schemes, then going over the answers the next day.
Briles said he's pleased with the players' knowledge of the schemes thus far, but also that's a relative concept.
"It's kind of a loaded question," he said. "Because everything is really calm when you're sitting down looking at a computer and you don't have somebody on the other side of the ball that's trying to knock your head off.
"You can be calm in these environments and be able to retain information. That's one thing. But to go on a field and execute seeing signals and your alignments and physically putting your body through that and doing it, that's another. But what we can do right now, I feel really good about where we're at."
Odom said he and his defensive staff have been able to go through a slow install of the plans, then start back over again.
"At the end of the day, man, you're a teacher," Odom said. "You've got to be able to provide the content. And everybody learns differently. Some guys learn by drawing the plays and the blitzes. Some guys, they've got to see it visually. Some guys have to walk through it. Everybody's a different learner.
"I think over this time I've become a better teacher because we've got time to be able to do that. You go back to square one and you teach and don't assume that they know anything. And just take it day by day on continuing to push them, motivate them, but also provide them the opportunity to learn at the pace that they need to.
"It's been really good and our kids have done a heck of a job of retaining information but also making sure that they're hungry. They're a hungry group in wanting to succeed and they understand that this is part of how they're going to be successful is understanding what we're trying to get implemented with our offensive and defensive schemes."
Briles said the virtual learning has given the offensive coaches an opportunity to show how defenses will operate in different personnel groupings in trying to stop his schemes, which have been on display at Baylor, Florida Atlantic, Houston and Florida State over the past four years. That provides a fuller understanding for offensive players and how to make adjustments to what they see.
The more the players grasp alignments, schemes and adjustments during the time off the field, the quicker they should be able to operate it when they get back on the grass.
"The thing we want to do when we hit the ground running again is to make sure we can go execute the things that we put in," Odom said. "We'll have plenty in when we get back at it.
"We'll have opportunities now to go get it on video whenever that time comes and really teach the details of every single call, what that looks like."
Briles said there will be an evaluation period to hone in on the things the 2020 team is good at and start trimming away the parts it can't execute well when practice cranks up.
"Yeah, we're going to teach a lot and our guys are going to know a lot of what we're going to be doing this year," he said. "You're always changing. You're going to take off and you're going to add, but our guys will have a lot of knowledge when we come back together and we get going. Then it's when you get on the grass, what are you good at and what do you have time to rep?"
Sports on 04/18/2020