Game plan is in Razorbacks ready

FAYETTEVILLE – Two days away from the Arkansas football team’s clash with 12th-ranked Florida, the Razorbacks third top 15 opponent in as many weeks, and the game plan has been installed and the Razorbacks are ready for another challenge.

Arkansas and Florida kick off at 11:30 a.m. at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium and the action is scheduled to be televised regionally by Raycom Sports.

The Razorbacks had a good workout on Thursday spanning a little more than an hour as the Hogs used their time efficiently moving between the offense and defense to the two-minute drills to special teams.

“We worked on our attitude and made sure that we had a good attitude and our players responded to that,” Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino said. “We practice hard and with good effort. We are trying to cut back a little bit on what we are asking them to do so we can focus and not make assignment errors. We have gotten better during the week of practice, now the key is to make sure that shows up on Saturday. Other than that we just have to get out there Saturday, execute, get better and get into a position where we can win the game in the fourth quarter.”

Arkansas is still planning to bring a well stocked play book into Saturday’s game, but Petrino clarified his earlier statement for the media in attendance.

“(Cutting back) just means that you are going back and cutting back a little bit on the volume of game plan that you carry,” Petrino explained. “The number of different plays offensively and the number of different schemes defensively. What we are seeing on the video is guys hesitating so hopefully we all know what we are doing and go at it full speed.”

One thing that Coach Petrino has been happy with is the leadership from his players and their desire to turn things around as Florida gets ready to come to town.

“I think that London Crawford, Michael Smith and Jonathan Luigs on offense have really worked hard at (being leaders),” Petrino said. “Wendel Davis, I think has done a real nice job on defense along with Elston Forte and they have really started to rally together. I think that having Wendel back the way he played with the speed and physicalness that he played with, that will help our defense.”

Now that Saturday’s game is imminent, Arkansas’ coaching staff knows that it has to do a better job in the first quarter to put pressure on its opponents, no matter who the Razorbacks are playing.

“We’re looking forward to the day that we can come out and say how we did a great job in the first quarter which is how you should open the game. We haven’t done that yet. It is a broken record, but we have to get it fixed. We have to execute early in the game and I think that it’s really important in this game so we build confidence. You get confidence and say ‘hey, we can play with these guys.’”

Arkansas and Florida kick off at 11:30 a.m. at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. For more information regarding Razorback football or University of Arkansas athletics please visit ArkansasRazorbacks.com.