Morris: Arkansas rebuild 'not an overnight fix'
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FAYETTEVILLE — With an open date looming, Chad Morris already has plans for three practices and three days of recruiting next week.
Coming off an embarrassing 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky, though, questions about his job security have reached a fever pitch. The second-year coach now has as many losses to Group of Five teams as he has total wins, but as of this story’s publishing Saturday evening, he remains the Razorbacks’ head coach.
He was peppered with questions throughout his 13-minute postgame press conference and was adamant that he was the man for the job. In fact, he was specifically asked by one reporter if he still thought that was the case.
“Absolutely. I am the guy,” Morris said. “There’s no question. I knew that this was going to take some time. I knew this was going to be a process of recruiting and developing and building, especially in this conference.
“I knew the strains that take place weekly in this conference and the depth that it needs to be successful. Right now, we don’t have that. We've got to go get that and we've got to recruit to it, and we've got to continue to develop. Right now, it’s unfortunate we’re playing as many young guys as we're playing, but that's the truth.”
That was just one of three separate occasions in which he advocated for more time when responding to questions. The first time he was asked about his future with the program, Morris mentioned he needed more time to fix the Razorbacks’ issues through recruiting.
“I’ll tell you this: it’s going to take some time,” Morris said. “This is not an overnight fix. We’ve seen that now for two years. We’re all frustrated. We’re all incredibly frustrated.
“We have a big youth movement on this team and a lot of young guys that are contributing and who will be tremendous football players. Where we are right now with these guys, we have some major deficiencies that we have to fix, we have to fill.”
To his credit, the 2019 class - Morris’ first true class after having only a couple weeks between getting hired and the 2018 early signing date - was one of Arkansas’ best in the Rivals era.
Ranked 20th nationally, it featured a school-record 13 four-star prospects and five players who have become starters as true freshmen. Including those in the 2018 class, exactly half of Arkansas’ 22 starters against Western Kentucky were signed by Morris.
“I think we are in a part of where our program is that we’re asking a lot of 18-year-old young men to step in and play against some older guys,” Morris said. “There’s no excuse in that, but they’re having to grow up and they’re having to grow up the hard way.”
Two of those players - Rakeem Boyd and Bumper Pool - and one of former head coach Bret Bielema’s holdovers, Kamren Curl, also spoke to the media. All three nodded when asked if the team was still 100 percent behind its coach.
“Yes, we are,” Boyd added. “We're gonna keep fighting. Like I said, it's pride. Go out there and play.”
Morris has openly admitted he knew it was a massive rebuilding project when he took the job and reiterated that again Saturday. That’s a large reason why Arkansas hired him, he said, because of his recruiting footprint that emphasizes Texas.
However, the problems are approaching historic levels.
The Razorbacks have been out-scored by a combined 138 points in their last four games - the worst four-game stretch in school history - and are now allowing 36.2 points and 446.7 yards per game, both of which would be record highs. Offensively, they’ve thrown 33 interceptions since Morris took over, tied for their most over a two-year period since 1971-72, and there’s two games left.
“We’re struggling stopping the run - that’s one of them,” Morris said when asked for the team’s specific deficiencies. “From a depth standpoint, we’ve got to create depth on both sides of the ball - offensive line, defensive line. That has got to happen in this league and that’s where it starts. This is a line of scrimmage league.”
Those two remaining games are at No. 1 LSU and against Missouri in War Memorial Stadium. Losses in both of them would make Morris 4-20 overall with an 0-16 record in SEC play.
No other coach in the history of the conference, which was founded in 1933, has lost his first 16 SEC games to begin his tenure.
Morris said he has weekly conversations with athletics director Hunter Yurachek on Sundays in which they go “in depth” about the previous game and the program in general. They’ll “continue to visit,” he added.
“Everybody’s frustrated with that and I get it; I am too,” Morris said. “But I also understand that to get this thing right, it’s going to take some time in this league.”