FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas defense seems to be ready for the season opener that is now a week away.
Travis Williams met with the media following Wednesday's practice and likes where the team is at this point.
"I thought camp went well," Williams said. "You know how it is, the grind of the camp, you have some days you’re like OK, let’s go, let’s pick it up. But for the most part it’s been a very consistent camp. Guys are doing exactly what we asked them to do. That’s always fun. You can see guys improvement throughout camp."
A transfer who missed action with a concussion, but has since returned and making his presence felt on the field is edge Anton Juncaj. He had 15 sacks at Albany last season and obviously drew some comparisons to Jared Verse, former Albany and Florida State standout now with the Los Angeles Rams.
"Yeah, so Anton is on the field, you could see when he first got here, you know, we have a lot of defense," Williams said. "So him just learning the defense and the expectations of Coach (Deke) Adams and different things like that. It was just so much more defense and so much faster than what he was used to. Now he has the defense down and he has the speed of the game down, you can really see his talent out there so you could really see the progress with him."
As far as those comparisons to Verse, Juncaj commented on those.
"I mean, I take it as a compliment," Juncaj said. "We're different players, but yeah, Jared's like my big brother."
In addition to his defensive coordinator duties, Williams coaches the linebackers. Xavian Sorey Jr, Brad Spence, Stephen Dix, Anthony Switzer and others are competing for playing time there. How many would Williams like to have available to play?
"Yes sir, that’s a good question," Williams said. "I would like to play all of them. I’ve got a lot of them in there. But if we could get four to five that we could just be rotating. I tell the guys. I tell the guys this story all the time because I watch women’s college basketball a lot. I just saw Dawn Staley at the University of South Carolina where she was just throwing a new five out there and just keeping them fresh. We know how great Caitlin Clark is, but the team got wore down. So just being able to sub and being able to keep the guys fresh. I just want to put all the guys … - now, they’ve got to earn the right to be out there. But if we can get four or five of them out there and just continue to rotate them.
"The days of when I played linebacker, I didn’t want to leave the field. Those guys don’t want to leave the field now. But if you’re playing 90 snaps or 85, 90 snaps, you’re going to have 40 of them, like if you’re running to the ball like your life depended on it, 30 of them are going to be one of them that are not as fast as you want them to be. But if you get 40 just straight unbelievable effort, then now the scouts are looking at that, “OK.’ They don’t care if you play 100 snaps. They want to see those 30 or 40 just unbelievable snaps. The guys are buying into that, just being fresh, playing special teams, playing 30 to 40 snaps. But four to five guys to answer your question."
Dix came from Marshall after one year. Before that he played at Florida State. Williams talked about how Dix has done this camp.
"Good player, good player," Williams said. "In that box, he's a run-stopping Joker, now. He can kick, diagnose, has good movement, got good eyes, very strong and powerful. He's been a really good addition for us, and he's going to play as well. We've got a good thing. We've got a good thing. We'll be able to rotate guys. And he has a lot of playing experience.
"When he was at Florida State he was a freshman All-American, and he was at Marshall, and did really well there, and now he's with us. So he's a guy with a lot of experience, a lot of experience. So when you when you go out and you say, Okay, you're trying to get a position, what do you need? First thing we looked at, Okay, when we go in the portal, because we have to go in the portal, we've got to get a guy that has a lot of experience. He brought that experience to the room."
The Arkansas-UAPB game in War Memorial will kickoff at 6:30 p.m. and be televised on ESPNU.
Photos Courtesy of Craven Whitlow CW3 Sports Action
