Hicks, Starkel address QB battle before final fall scrimmage

FAYETTEVILLE — With the season quickly approaching, fans and media alike have nearly resorted to reading tea leaves for insight on Arkansas’ quarterback battle.

When Nick Starkel worked with the first-team offense in the opening period of Tuesday’s practice and head coach Chad Morris revealed that he took all of the first-team reps, some assumed the decision had been made.

However, that’s not the case. Morris declined to name a starter during his press conference and Starkel said it just happened to be his day with the ones, as he and Ben Hicks have been rotating throughout fall camp.

As the second-year coach said Saturday (https://arkansas.rivals.com/news/hogs-getting-closer-to-qb-decision-but-no-starter-named-yet), the competition will at least continue through Wednesday’s scrimmage, with both quarterbacks expected to get reps with the first unit, and maybe even into game week.

The only thing for certain at this point is that the Razorbacks feel much better about their current quarterback situation than what they had last year, when Ty Storey and Cole Kelley - both of whom will begin the 2019 season as backups at Western Kentucky and Southeastern Louisiana, respectively (https://arkansas.rivals.com/news/former-arkansas-qbs-fail-to-win-starting-jobs-at-new-schools) - were fighting for the starting job.

“You can definitely hear that really from the defensive side of the ball talking about it,” Starkel said. “They’re like, ‘Well shoot, we’ve got guys that’ll throw it deep this year, that will throw it over our head and that are going to make smart plays.’”