You Might Want to See How Guiton Does Before Promotion
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Lost in the glow of a 39-36 overtime win over Florida last week, a lot of folks wanting Kenny Guiton to get the job full-time to replace Dan Enos. That may happen, but it probably shouldn't be now after just one game. Especially with them going back to what worked and Hugh Freeze beat that last year with Liberty.
Positive signs are there. A difference in attitude, look and feel got the Razorbacks back to what they were doing well before: letting quarterback KJ Jefferson have the freedom to make plays. That worked with some success against the Gators. The only downside is Auburn this week will be prepared for that. Nobody seems to be paying attention to that or that Freeze, now Auburn's coach, beat the Razorbacks last year with a Liberty team. He has better players now.
"We haven’t made that decision yet," Hogs coach Sam Pittman said Monday. "I don’t know how he could have done a better job than what he did on Saturday to be perfectly honest with you. With everything. Just imagine you had fall camp and you played that way your first game."There's the rub. The Tigers will be prepared for that on Saturday and they have SEC scholarship players, too. They've seen some pretty good folks this season and managed to take No. 1 Georgia deep into the fourth quarter with the game still in doubt. Let's not get caught up in too much celebrating after one game where it appeared everything was fixed. There was no basis for them in their scouting to be prepared.
"You add all the things that went on and you had a two-week window to prepare," Pittman said. "He called a freaking great game and had them off balance. He did a great job. I never questioned anything that he called because he called what we practiced."
Ignoring what Pittman wanted was what got Enos fired. That raises some other questions that will be asked later. I'm pretty sure if Pittman had it to do all over again, he might have made a different hire after Kendal Briles took off for TCU. As suspected, a lot of the offensive line problems may have been at least delayed. If offensive line coach Cody Kennedy never fully bought in to what Enos was wanting, confusion may have been the result, which is what we saw through eight games.
It was pretty easy to see the increased urgency. That was obvious the way players were running the ball to the umpire to be spotted for the next play. It did seem to work better, at least when it counted.
"It benefits the offensive line,” Pittman said about going faster. “That’s the biggest key. People aren’t necessarily getting their cleats in the ground and checking to where your back is and all this kind of stuff because they don’t have as much time. I think that’s part of it."
Sure, the attitude may have been better but that's always an objective thing to view. We'll know a little more after seeing them face a team that's had the chance to look at the film on Arkansas ... and maybe better a little better prepared. You can design all the fancy plays you want, but if you don't have the people to do it, you're wasting time. Guiton, at least, knows what these players can do.
Kickoff for the game Saturday with Auburn is 3 p.m. on the SEC Network and fuboTV. You can also hear the game on ESPN Arkansas 99.5 in Fayetteville, 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.
HOGS FEED:
ARKANSAS BASKETBALL DRAWING NCAA TITLE BUZZ AT NATIONAL LEVEL
HOGS SENT DIGGING DEEP INTO DEPTH CHART AFTER ANOTHER KEY INJURY
RAZORBACKS ADD PERSONAL ACCOLADES TO VICTORY OVER FLORIDA
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