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FAYETTEVILLE — Based on comments by coaches to the media, Arkansas is already well ahead of where it was the last two seasons in playbook installation.
Offensive coordinator Kendal Briles said in a Zoom videoconference Friday that his unit had already installed about 75 percent heading into fall camp.
“We’re going to dial back just a little bit the first week, but…we feel good about what we have in, like I said almost 75%, and we’ll be able to keep moving forward from that, Briles said. “As we continue to go and assess the personnel and figure out what guys do well, that’ll determine how much more we decide to do.”
That is a stark contrast to the previous coaching staff, who - by head coach Chad Morris’ own admission during the end-of-season press conference - were at just 30-35% throughout the 2018 season.
Even with former SMU quarterback Ben Hicks, who went through all of spring practice, the Razorbacks still had just 65-70% of their playbook installed after their first scrimmage of fall camp last year.
Morris warned it would take a while get the offense installed and the results - Arkansas ranked 110th in scoring offense in 2019 - certainly indicate he wasn’t exaggerating.
“I'll tell you this, I'm going to put in and get in what they can retain and do well,” Morris said before his first spring at Arkansas. “If that's 20 percent, then that's 20 percent of our offense. If it's 50 percent, then it's 50 percent.
“We may not be at 80 percent of our offense or 100 percent of our entire offense. It might take us two years to get to that point, or a year and a half to get to that point. I don't know that. Um, it makes no difference what I know or the coaches know. It makes all the difference in what our players know and what they can execute. And that's really big.”
By comparison, Briles is a veteran coordinator with a history of improving offenses in a short amount of time, as evidenced by his one-year stints at Florida State, Houston and Florida Atlantic.
That success is why new head coach Sam Pittman tabbed Briles as the Razorbacks’ coordinator this offseason. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has prevented him from getting to implement his playbook on the field.
Instead, he was limited to teaching it via virtual meetings allowed by the NCAA during the long layoff. Briles said back in April that he believed he’d be able to install the entire playbook over the summer, but it was still going to be a challenge to know what his players could actually execute.
Walk-through practices over the past month have helped give him an idea of what they retained, but real practices in fall camp aren’t set to start until Monday and it’ll be the following week before they get in full pads.
What has become abundantly clear, though, is that the Razorbacks will have more plays in their arsenal for 2020 than in the past two years.
