Hogs move inside for second practice

FAYETTEVILLE –The Razorback football team moved their afternoon practice indoors because of storms in the Fayetteville area on Saturday and put together an intense 90-minute training session on their first two-a-day practice of the preseason.

Starting with a stretching period, the Hogs got right to drills and practice and used every moment of their practice time as it prepared for a Sunday morning scrimmage.

“It was good today,” Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino said. “They came out with a lot of energy in the second practice. I thought we played faster. We didn’t install anything new today and got a lot done in a short period of time.”

In the opening set of drills, the Arkansas defensive line and linebackers worked on fumble recoveries while the secondary concentrated on tackling. On the offensive side of the ball, the Razorback receivers stood less than 10 feet from a throwing machine and caught balls aimed at their chest while moving ever closer to the machine.

Upon the completion of the drills, the Razorbacks went back to the pass where the quarterbacks and receivers went against the defensive backs. In a repeat of drills from the morning, Arkansas’ passing attack looked solid in the afternoon session.

Following the protocol from the morning session, Arkansas then worked on its inside runs with the offensive line, tailbacks, defensive line and linebackers. The receivers and secondary moved to the far side of Walker Pavilion to focus their energies on coverage technique and breaking away from defenders.

The day ended with field goals and more 11 on 11 plays.

Standing out on Saturday afternoon was sophomore guard Wade Grayson who saw considerable time with the first-team offense.

“It was a day that we needed to look at him with the ones,” Petrino said. “He jumped in there and will give us great competition. That is something we’ll do tomorrow and I think that we’ll have to use three guards throughout the season and certainly Grayson is going to be one of them.”

The Razorbacks return to the practice field on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. for a scrimmage at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium pending weather. If Arkansas is able to practice outside the scrimmage is open to the public, but inclement weather may force the Hogs back into Walker Pavilion where the scrimmage will be closed due to safety.

“We look for execution (in the scrimmage),” Petrino said. “We want to see guys do what we ask them to do, we want to see guys play with full speed, run hard to the ball on defense and execute on offense. We’ll really look at depth so it will be something where we evaluate players and look to see who we can count on. We need to get an idea of what we do from here, what our strengths are, what do we do well, what do we need to work on and what do we throw out.

“This is the time to go ones against ones. Maybe the next scrimmage about half and half and then the next scrimmage you scout it up and go one versus two.”

For more information regarding Razorback football or University of Arkansas athletics please visit ArkansasRazorbacks.com.