Petrino says Arkansas offense remains work in progress
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Arkansas offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino provided updates Tuesday on his highly-anticipated offense, which has eight days until it will be unleashed against UAPB at War Memorial Stadium to open the season Aug. 29.
Back in Fayetteville calling plays for the first time since he was head coach from 2008-11, Petrino will look to field an offense that can look a little better than it did a year ago during the Razorbacks' 4-8 campaign.
"I feel good about the way we’ve installed our offense," Petrino said Tuesday. "The guys that learned it in the spring and how well they did with it and then what they did over the summer, I feel like we have some knowledge of it, or a lot of knowledge of it coming into this fall.
"Then in the last week we’re in the phase of cutting it back and starting to refine and understand who we are and what we do well and kind of putting some parts aside for later and working on other things that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get this down.’ We’ve got to just keep working on it and get it down. So we’re certainly not where we want to be right now, but we continue to improve and the players have great attitudes and are extremely hard working."
Petrino's hand-picked quarterback is Taylen Green, a transfer from Boise State. The 6-foot-6 signal caller can also run 22 miles per hour, but accuracy and interceptions are a concern from his previous stop.
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While Green had an overall successful preseason camp, he did throw two of eight interceptions Arkansas quarterbacks had in Thursday's closed scrimmage.
"We’re working on it," Petrino said of the interceptions. "I mean, you know, we’re still learning and developing and finding out what we can do at each quarterback. We do know that tipped balls get intercepted and we got to do a better job with that.
"But, yeah, Taylen (Green) had two interceptions. One was a tipped ball. Could’ve been caught, nice play by the defensive back that broke the play up, and then another guy made the catch. And then Malachi (Singleton) got a couple of picks against the one defense, which was unfortunate for him. He usually takes care of the ball pretty well."
Despite having an injury to left guard Patrick Kutas early in fall camp, the offensive line has found some consistency, Petrino said.
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The Razorbacks' defensive line is a tough bunch led by star defensive end Landon Jackson, but they're starting to be met with more opposition.
"I think when we first started (fall camp) out the thing that shocked me the most was that we were a little bit behind the defensive line as far as how we ended spring and running the ball and protecting the quarterback," Petrino said. "I felt like it took us four or five days. We started getting better. We came at it and another couple of days we’re better.
"Now I feel like our offensive line is working together and we’re starting to see what we saw at the end of spring ball and we’re starting to actually go past where I feel like we were at the end of spring ball. We’re executing and we’re both being able to run it and throw it and you know we’ve got to be able to do both."
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There are still eight days until the Razorbacks will snap the ball for the first time, so Petrino has time to fine-tune the details.
"What do we do with the tight end? How do we get to certain things?" Petrino said. "We're still working on now those parts of the identity, but I think we understand what we're doing in the run game. Our protections have been pretty solid. Our communication has been pretty solid on that. And then it's just the aspects of the passing game that we like the best, and we're getting closer on it."
Arkansas will kickoff the 2024 season Thursday, Aug. 29, against UAPB at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.