Don’t be fooled: Arkansas football will look different in August than it did on Saturday
The best bit of news to come out of Arkansas’ spring-capping scrimmage Saturday was no one was badly hurt.
Frankly, that’s all that really matters.
Things in spring game are so tightly controlled, so manufactured and so short on resembling what the fall will look like that what happens out there outside of injury can largely be ignored.
Quarterback KJ Jefferson completed 9 of 18 passes. The rest of the quarterbacks, including likely top back-up Jacolby Criswell, threw 23. Of the 61 rushes Arkansas had, 12 were from first-team All-SEC running back Rocket Sanders. Nine different wide recievers caught passes. Nine different players had sacks.
What the scrimmage did allow is for coaches to make minute decisions and adjustments going forward. Arkansas is expected land at least a few more players out of the transfer portal before summer is finished, some of which could insert themselves into the two-deep. About a quarter of the Class of 2023 recruiting group has yet to arrive, too.
The Razorbacks will be Jefferson’s and Sanders’ team on offense. They’ll be – they hope – balanced on defense. And Cam Little will likely assert himself as one of the top kickers in the SEC on special teams.
None of that was witnesses, really, Saturday. And that’s OK. The 10,000-ish people who went to Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium for the scrimmage just wanted to see football, to whet their appetites for fall.
Even if what they saw Saturday isn’t reflective of what they’ll see when the season arrives.
