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Thu August 01, 2024

By Lance Hawley

Sports Razorbacks

First Day of Football Practice is in the Books

Arkansas Football Razorbacks Sam Pittman Bobby Petrino

By Otis Kirk FAYETTEVILLE -- The first preseason practice for Arkansas has now been completed and the Hogs survived the heat to have some good drills. Following the late practice, Sam Pittman and selected players reflected back on the first day. “Good practice today," Pittman said. "You’ll ask me about who flashed, I’ll try to get ahead of that. Obviously we were in spiders, but I thought Rodney Hill did a good job of running the ball, Tyrell Reed (Jr.) did a good job of running the ball. Larry Worth (III) flashed, Jaheim Singletary picked a pass in the two-minute drill. Cuddy (Marquise Robinson) showed, Larry Worth showed, (Anthony) Switzer. I’m talking about the new guys that we were really looking forward to seeing if they could — you know, the April kids coming in. So, I feel like we hit on those guys. "I tell you, Monte Harrison caught a nice slant route for a touchdown in either a two-minute drill or in team period. So, I think the competition part of it is going to be — hopefully we’ll be a little bit deeper than we thought. I thought both sides of the ball line-wise played extremely hard and we stayed up. The more athletic you are, the more you’ll stay on your feet, and I couldn’t tell you but maybe a handful of plays that someone was on the ground.

"So, I thought the practice started a little slow early through fastball starts, indy. I thought inside run was a little slow, I don’t think we were chasing the ball like we want to chase the ball, but I thought after the first break it picked up for us and we continued to get better as the day went on." Harrison is a 6-foot-3, 230-pound wide receiver who is a former professional baseball player. Coming out of Lee's Summit West (Mo.) High School he was a four-star recruit who committed to Nebraska. He was drafted in Round 2 by the Milwaukee Brewers during the 2014 Major League Baseball Draft. He is one of the older freshman in the nation. Worth played nickel on Wednesday and Anthony Switzer, former Marion and Arkansas State athlete, was at linebacker. In recruiting it was thought that Worth would be a linebacker and Switzer more a nickel or safety. Pittman explained the change. "Well, part of it is the need," Pittman said. "Part of it is where we need guys, other part of it is that — Worth has so much speed that he can play inside, he can play outside. We’re trying to see, and we probably will switch that maybe after two or three days to see, but Switzer looked really good inside today, I mean really good. Unafraid, very aggressive. Obviously we don’t have pads on, but still. In pads or out of pads, you’re going to find out a little bit about the guy’s aggressiveness or ability, his physicality. So, I kind of like where he’s at in there. Now, it’s basically about needs. What we’re trying to find, obviously you need them all over the place but you need your bigger, faster, stronger guys as close to the ball as you can get. So, that’s what we’re trying to do right now." Taylen Green is the quarterback from Boise State. Pittman talked about how he did. "I thought his leadership was good," Pittman said. "I don’t know if he threw the ball as well as he would like to today. Lot of times we were offensively going against whatever breeze there was out there. But, I thought Malachi (Singleton) had a good day, I thought Taylen had a good day. You know you get a guy like that, you want him to throw every time a completion, but as a head coach you want the DBs to be all over him too. So, overall I thought they had a good day. I was really impressed with how Malachi played today."

The play of the day was early in the practice. Green threw a pass to wide receiver Tyrone Broden who made a one-handed snag. "The only thing that was a wow-wow was Broden caught a heck of a pass, one-handed grab early in practice," Pittman said. "But, as far as — you know, you didn’t see a lot of wide open runs, a lot of wide open pass plays. We had one in the two-minute that we busted a back in the backfield, the second team went down and scored on that. So, I think not a whole lot of wows, but not a whole lot of wows the other way where you’re going, ‘Ah man, we don’t know what we’re doing out here.’ I just thought it was a pretty sound practice. We have walked through that twice already, so they should be pretty ready to go, but you know obviously when it speeds up, you’ll find out who plays a little bit better and who plays a little bit worse." A smiling Green talked about the catch by Broden following practice. "Yeah, I saw him in man coverage," Green said. "You know I love my guys in man coverage and they tell me all the time, ‘Throw it up and I’m going to make a play,” which he did. He made it and it just set the tone for like the whole practice. I had to go celebrate with him in the end zone. That’s what I like, we’re always having fun." Pittman was asked later again about the pass and catch with Green and Broden. "I thought it was pretty special," Pittman said. "Again, I think we've all been to practice. Somebody makes a play like that, not a whole lot, you know, they don't like the guy or they just like, 'when are we going to get out of practice?' And there's a whole bunch of guys ran in, including Taylor, you know, ran down there and patted him on the back. So it was a heck of a play. And I look forward to many more of those."

Arkansas will open the 2024 season on Thursday, Aug. 29, in Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium against UAPB at 6:30 p.m. on ESPNU.

Photos Courtesy of Craven Whitlow CW3 Sports Action

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