Hogs finalize South Carolina game plan

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas Razorback football spent just over one hour on the practice fields just south of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium on Thursday preparing for Saturday’s game against South Carolina.

"I think we have had a good week of preparation," head coach Bobby Petrino said. "Our players understand the challenges that we have in front of us. Offensively, we need to go to South Carolina and take care of the football. The defense needs to produce some turnovers and we need to score points off of turnovers. We need to set up touchdowns and move the ball well. Both our running and passing games need to improve from last week."

Stopping South Carolina on both sides of the ball has been stressed all week in practice. Thursday was no different.

"Defensively, we really need to concentrate on stopping the run," Petrino said. "We need to make them one dimensional and put pressure on their quarterback to execute the offense. We also need to pressure the quarterback when they implement the passing game. This is a big challenge but I think we are ready for it as a football team."

A solid week of practice gives Petrino hope that Arkansas’ running game will improve this week.

"I think our running game improved this week," Petrino said. "We put a lot of work, a lot of emphasis on it. Any time of you mix up the personnel, there are timing issues and communication issues that need to be worked on and that’s what we did this week."

With Arkansas’ bowl game chances getting better with every win, Petrino and his staff are keeping their team focused on taking each game one week at a time and consistently improving on all sides of the ball.

"Our focus is on winning one game at a time," Petrino said. "Our focus is going on the road and winning a game on the road. We know it’s going to take a tremendous amount of poise and we have to go out there and play as a team. We also have to play very physical. The good thing is that we are going to have to do the same things we did to win at Auburn. We have been through this before. It’s going to be the same type of crowd and very loud. We have to make sure we do a good job of communicating on the field and on the sidelines."

Arkansas and South Carolina will kick off at 12 p.m. CST in Columbia, S.C. For more information on Arkansas Athletics, visit ArkansasRazorbacks.com.