Teammates not happy with Arkansas fans booing Kelley

FAYETTEVILLE – Quarterback has been a shaky position for Arkansas since Chad Morris took over the team last December and it hit an all-time low Saturday.

Redshirt sophomore Cole Kelley returned to the starting lineup and completed only 16 of 35 passes for 185 yards and four interceptions in the Razorbacks’ 44-17 blowout loss to North Texas.

Despite having three interceptions in the first half, head coach Chad Morris stuck with the gunslinger from Louisiana and he promptly threw another on Arkansas’ first possession after halftime.

It was the most times an Arkansas quarterback has been picked off in a single game since walk-on Wade Hill threw five against Georgia in the 1991 Independence Bowl.

“I was trying to get to the point of staying with one guys as long as we could with the hope of giving the entire game to Cole,” Morris said. “Cole had the better week of practice and so we made the decision to go with Cole.

“We made the decision to stay with Cole in the second half because I wanted to see if he could rally us back.”

Following that play, Morris finally made the decision to bring in his true freshmen for the first time this season. He let Connor Noland and John Stephen Jones play out the rest of the game because he didn’t want to put Ty Storey in a game that was already out of reach.

The move to Noland midway through the third quarter was met with cheers by the few remaining fans, but Kelley handled the benching well, Morris said.

“The guy’s a competitor,” Morris said. “He wants to do right and wants to do good. He was right there encouraging those guys all along, even when he came out.”

It was probably a move many fans wanted to see earlier in the game, as there were a smattering of boos when Kelley stayed in the game during the second quarter after an interception and a much more audible chorus of boos when he came back out after halftime.

That reaction rubbed Kelley’s teammates the wrong way and they spoke out about it during the postgame press conference.

“I think it’s really easy to pick one guy to point a finger at, and for the majority of the first half, I think that guy was Cole, at least by the outside world,” senior wide receiver Jared Cornelius said. “When you come out of the locker room in the second half and your starting quarterback is getting booed? By the home team? When is that right? How is that right?”

Senior center Hjalte Froholdt shouldered a lot of the blame, saying the offensive line didn’t play well enough to give him a chance to make plays.

“The quarterback can’t throw the ball well and can’t sit in the pocket, and the receivers can’t run good routes if Cole has to start scrambling or whoever is back there has to start running around because what he’s seeing is a big D-lineman in his face,” Froholdt said. “All position groups, I think, made mistakes, but in the end we’ve got to protect better I believe.”

On several occasions, Kelley and his receivers didn’t appear to be on the same page. He would throw the ball outside and the receiver would break inside, or vice versa.

“There were several miscommunications out there,” Morris said. “We’ve got to go back and look in the mirror. We have to go back and be able to run our base offense effectively.”

Regardless of the reason behind Kelley’s struggles, though, Froholdt also thought the fans’ reaction was uncalled for. After thanking those who stayed through the end of the game, he made his feelings known.

“For your quarterback to be booed, I mean… I don’t know if you’re a real Hog fan,” Froholdt said. “I know you want some controversial comment out of us, but I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

Although he was on the sideline when the boos rained down, safety Santos Ramirez did not appreciate the fans booing his quarterback, either.

“As a football team in the state of Arkansas, I feel like that was disrespectful,” Ramirez said. “He’s out there giving his heart out for this team.

“Regardless of if he had a bad game or not, for people to boo him? They don’t understand what the game of football really is about. They aren’t on the field playing. … That just shows that when things hit the fan, everybody is ready to tap out. That’s all that shows and we can’t have that. We need support from our fans more than ever.”

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