Who Won Razorbacks Quarterback Battle Saturday? Nobody. Both. Neither.

As much as we're hearing about Arkansas' quarterbacks, it's interesting there doesn't appear to be anybody emerging.

That's assuming, of course, that nobody has and coach Ryan Silverfield is wanting to keep the appearance of competition going. We've heard that before.

Silverfield had an interesting twist on that Saturday.

"Both quarterbacks were good, I can't pick one over the other and I'm not sure I want to yet," he said.

Silverfield said exactly that after the Razorbacks worked through a 95-play scrimmage inside Walker Pavilion on Saturday.

KJ Jackson and AJ Hill each got time with the first unit. Each moved the offense. Neither one stumbled badly enough to hand the job to the other guy.

When it was over, the head coach stood there and told anybody who'd listen that he liked what both of them did.

Coaches say that kind of thing sometimes when they're being politically correct. It sounded like a man who actually doesn't know which quarterback he's got yet and apparently he's okay with that for right now.

Silverfield's been consistent about what he wants from whoever plays quarterback at Arkansas.

He used the word "efficient" again Saturday, same as he did at his first press conference. Efficient means you take care of the football. That's a novel approach for the Hogs after the last couple of years.

It means you put the offense in a good spot, even when that means checking down or fixing the protection before the snap instead of trying to be a hero.

"Maybe that's a check play to the other side," Silverfield said. "Maybe that's fixing the protection or taking the check down when it's there. I thought they both executed at a high level."

Arkansas Razorbacks quarterback KJ Jackson during spring practices. | Nilsen Roman-allHOGS Images

That's what he's evaluating. Not arm strength. Not highlights. Efficiency. Decision-making. Command. Those things are harder to fake, and they tend to show up pretty clearly in a live scrimmage when the defense isn't just standing around waiting to be blocked.

By that standard, Silverfield thought his two quarterbacks passed the test on Saturday. He didn't offer statistics (said he hadn't even sat down with the numbers yet) but he wasn't hedging either. He genuinely liked what he saw.

There's no evidence to dispute that because it's one of those closed scrimmages all coaches love these days. It makes things easier to build fans' hopes that way.

Quarterbacks coach Mitch Stewart has been dealing with this competition on a daily basis, and he's the one who laid out exactly how it's going to get decided.

His answer was more honest than most coaches would've been.

"It's the million-dollar question because there's no blueprint to it," he said. "There's really not."

The staff is charting everything. Every completion, every incompletion and Stewart put it plainly when he said if one of those guys coughs, they chart it.

The analytics side of the evaluation is thorough, but Stewart knows that's only half the job.

The other half is the gut. Who moves the offense? Who makes the guys around him better? Who walks into a huddle and makes eleven people believe something good is about to happen?

There's no formula for any of that and Stewart wasn't pretending there is.

"I don't have an Excel spreadsheet for that," he said. "That's more of what you have to watch. At the end of the day, you just try to take the statistical, analytical part of it, you take the gut feeling part of it and you just do the best you can at seeing who's got the best of both worlds."

That kind of candor is refreshing. Coaches will sometimes dress up uncertainty in the language of process, making it sound more scientific than it is.

Stewart just told the truth that's partly data and partly instinct and they're working through it the same way everybody else does.

The rotation this spring has each quarterback owning an entire day with the first unit — not splitting series, not alternating drives. One guy gets the ones for a full practice, then the other guy gets them the next day.

Stewart says it lets both players get into a groove rather than constantly having to start cold. That could prove valuable if an injury happens.

One subplot worth watching is what Stewart described as a "windup" in Hill's throwing motion. The 6-foot-4 redshirt freshman has an elongated delivery.

The coaches have been working on shortening it up, particularly for situations like run-pass options, where hesitation kills the play. They appear to have a clue that leads to sacks against SEC defenses — or worse.

Stewart compared it to golfers. John Daly had a completely different swing than Freddy Couples, but both could hit it straight and hit it far.

At some point, a quarterback's delivery is what it is. The question isn't whether it looks textbook. The question is whether it works.

According to Stewart, Hill's figured out how to adjust his arm angle when the situation calls for it. That's good news.

A quarterback who can adapt on the fly is more valuable than one who looks perfect in warm-ups but can't modify anything under pressure.

What struck me most about Stewart's comments wasn't the technical stuff. It was what he said about the mindset of both quarterbacks.

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He said they haven't gotten caught up in the "hoopla" of the competition. They're not watching the rotation or counting snaps or worrying about perception.

They're focused on the rep in front of them. Each day, each practice, each throw. That's it.

"How am I going to be the best that I can be today, and they don't worry about the rest," Stewart said. "If they'll keep doing that, that's how they're going to build their reputation with the offense and with the team."

That's not a small thing. Quarterback competitions can turn sideways fast when one or both players start playing for the coach instead of playing to win.

They start pressing. They stop trusting their instincts. Jackson and Hill, at least so far, haven't done that. That's worth noting.

Next week the Razorbacks get into red zone work, short-yardage situations and more personnel groupings.

Silverfield mentioned possibly introducing some 20 and 21 personnel — two backs, different combinations — to give the defense different looks and give the offense more to install.

There'll be another scrimmage, probably somewhere in that 80-to-110-play window Silverfield mentioned.

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My guess is the quarterback picture will start coming clearer as those situational reps pile up.

Efficiency in the open field is one thing. Efficiency backed up against your own end zone, or in short-yardage with the game on the line is where you really find out who a quarterback is.

For now, though, nobody's won this job. Nobody's lost it either.

Based on what came out of Walker Pavilion on Saturday, Silverfield's telling the truth when he says he's pleased with both of them.

That doesn't happen often enough to take for granted.

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