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FAYETTEVILLE — Despite having a banged up shoulder and being down multiple possessions in the fourth quarter, Ben Hicks remained at quarterback until the very end of last week’s blowout loss to Auburn.

Asked in the postgame press conference whether he considered putting in redshirt freshman John Stephen Jones or true freshman K.J. Jefferson, head coach Chad Morris said it “wasn’t fair” to insert them into the game “in that moment.”

Morris doubled down on that comment during his weekly press conference Monday afternoon.

“I didn’t want to put them in a situation like that, that late in the game,” Morris said. “It wasn’t the time to do that.”

Specifically asked when a “fair” situation to play them would be, Morris said he thought it’d be in the form of a special package.

He seemed to be referring to Jefferson, who is by far the most capable runner of Arkansas’ quarterbacks, as he was a four-star dual-threat prospect coming out of Mississippi in the Class of 2019.

“We’ve got to be effective in running the football from a quarterback position,” Morris said. “Every part of our offense, when we’ve excelled at a very high level, our quarterback has been a big part of our run game, so we’ve got to do a good job of developing the packages to make that happen.”

Instead of putting him in and using one of his four games allowed by the NCAA to still maintain his redshirt, the Razorbacks put in a wildcat package for Treylon Burks. The star freshman wide receiver, who played some quarterback at Warren, carried twice for minus-1 yard against Auburn in those situations.

Wednesday Practice Observations

As is the case every Wednesday, the media was allowed to watch the first four periods - or about 20 minutes - of Arkansas’ practice. Here are some observations from that time…

~For the second straight day, redshirt freshman John Stephen Jones took the first reps at quarterback in a team session as the media viewing period ended. Asked about it during the weekly SEC teleconference, though, Morris said it didn’t mean much because that’s just something they do at various points of practice. “That has been something we’ve done, for the most part, I’d say the last two or three weeks for sure,” Morris said. “We are just trying to bring these guys along and get them some reps.”

~The only player in a green no-contact jersey was running back Rakeem Boyd, who has been in green the last couple of weeks. He is not expected to miss Saturday’s game.