Alabama A&M weaknesses starting to align perfectly with Hogs' strengths

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — It's officially a week before coach Sam Shade and his Alabama A&M Bulldogs march into Fayetteville to take on the Razorbacks in the season opener.

The team's second scrimmage, complete with fans, cheerleaders and band, is now tucked away and evaluated while the transition from preseason camp to the regular season necessitates practice be moved from normal daylight hours to 5:15 a.m. to avoid conflict with classes. For some, the thought of such an early practice might be rough, but for Shade, that might be the least rough part of the equation as he gets set to venture into SEC territory.

For starters, the one bright spot in the Bulldogs' second scrimmage was a handful of big running plays by the offense. That doesn't seem that bad except, as Shade probably already knows while getting ready to begin practicing for Arkansas on Monday, it means his defense is struggling against the run, which is a bad omen.

That's because one of the obvious strengths about Arkansas coming out of camp is how strong the running game has turned out to be. The offensive line is massively improved, quarterback Taylen Green is checking into runs at the right time more accurately, and running back Mike Washington, Jr. has evolved from little known transfer into a human highlight reel.

"Mike's a great pass protector," Arkansas offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino said. "His size, his strength, his knowledge. He's a great pass protector. He's 226 pounds, that is super fast, with good vision, and he's gonna be able to break long runs where we don't have to line up and call another play, so that's exciting."

For the past few weeks, the New Mexico State transfer has ripped off runs of 40 to 90 yards on the regular, often wasting little time from the beginning of practice or a scrimmage to get a long run under his belt.

"I can't believe I didn't find [Washington] last year," Petrino said. "That makes me mad. Bad job, coming out of Buffalo, we should have found that."

The ability to repeatedly break long runs bodes well for Arkansas fans who want to see if the buzz around Washington is legitimate, but for Shade, it just means making those 5:15 a.m. practices is easier because he's going to be kept up all night trying to figure out how to stop the Hogs' running game.

Even if something can be done to slow down the Washington coming out party, there's always the threat of Green breaking free behind him. The Arkansas quarterback has greatly improved his ability to see weaknesses in the defense and know what his teammates are going to do through countless hours reviewing plays through virtual reality, making the Hogs truly the stuff of nightmares for a team struggling in run defense.

"[Taking reps on the virtual reality headset] speeds up my process, so I have more time to process if I have to check the play, or if my protection is good and things like that," Green said. "It builds a habit of our checklists of what we got to do in a certain place."

Of course, there's only one thing that could make the situation worse when trying to prepare a SWAC school to face a Power Four program than a defense having difficulty with the run — injuries. The disappointment in Shade's voice was hard to miss as he discussed how many members of his team broke preseason camp populating what he refers to as "Muscle Beach."

"We've got a number of guys [over there]" Shade said. "These are guys who just can't go who are injured a little bit, so we send them over there to our strength coach, Coach [John} Williams. If they can't run, we have them do push-ups and sit-ups and all that. If they can't do anything with their upper body, they sure can jog and run and move around, so it'll be good to get some of those guys back because we've got a number of those guys over there.

"Obviously, Duke Miller's one of them at receiver. He's been out for a while, got the boot on his foot. [Plus, there's] a couple of other guys that we're counting on, we're hoping to get those guys back within the next week and go into Arkansas as healthy as we can be."

Miller is a big loss for the Bulldogs as a primary weapon in the passing game. He had 23 catches and a pair of touchdowns for an average just shy of 13.5 yards per game.

That makes things much harder for quarterback Cornelius Brown, who will not only face the largest secondary he will see all season, but one of the biggest in all of college football.

“[Our safeties] are big, and they don't look like me. They look good," Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said. "[They] can run, but they'll hit you now ... I always thought if you had really good linebackers that could run, which we do, and you [can] put some fear in the offense with your big safeties, you could be pretty good on defense. And I feel real comfortable that that's what we have."

Arkansas will get its first taste of action against Shade's Bulldogs next Saturday at 3:15 p.m. on SEC Network while Hogs fans get their first glimpse into what they have in their 2025 Razorbacks.

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