Louisiana-Monroe will have one factor in its favor when it tries to pull off the upset against No. 14 Arkansas: the element of mystery.
The Warhawks are only now playing their season opener, and that means no scouting report from last weekend to help the Razorbacks. In fact, even last year’s tapes might be a bit deceiving because Louisiana-Monroe has a new coach and a new quarterback.
“There’s no question about it,” Warhawks coach Todd Berry said. “There are some unique things to us that they haven’t seen from us before or haven’t seen from me.”
Berry’s team will need to take advantage of any edge it can, because the Warhawks will be heavy underdogs Saturday night against the Razorbacks. Led by quarterback Ryan Mallett, Arkansas is expected to brush aside Louisiana-Monroe in Little Rock, Ark., before massive clashes later this month with Georgia and Alabama. The Razorbacks started the season with a 44-3 win over Tennessee Tech in which Mallett completed all but three of his passes.
Arkansas also looked sharp on defense, holding the Golden Eagles to a field goal after an early goal line stand and shutting them out the rest of the way – and the Razorbacks (1-0) think they’re still capable of much more.
“I feel like it was dominant, but we always can do better,” linebacker Jerico Nelson said. “We still had some missed assignments and things like that. In a different game, a different situation, we probably could give up a big play.”
The offensive story was similar. The Razorbacks made mistakes, even if not all of them were noticeable or costly.
“It was a lot of technique breakdowns and guys not having their eyes open and seeing what the front was and seeing the right cuts to make,” offensive coordinator Garrick McGee said. “And our quarterback missed a couple of checks in the run game. Just little things that will get us beat.”
The last time Arkansas faced Louisiana-Monroe, the Razorbacks needed a late fourth-down conversion to rally for a victory. Of course, those Hogs didn’t have Mallett, the 6-foot-6 passer in the discussion for this year’s Heisman Trophy.
“Last year I thought he forced some balls. He’s showing great patience right now,” Berry said. “A lot of times with quarterbacks you can get up in their face and challenge him to be able to see the receivers. Well, we don’t even have anybody tall enough to reach his face.”
Mallett is surrounded by a veteran corps of receivers, including Joe Adams, who caught six passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns last weekend.
“There was a time frame there at the University of Arkansas where you could focus on the running back and that was the only guy that you had to worry about stopping,” Berry said. “Ryan Mallett does such a wonderful job of distributing the ball to all of his receivers, to the running backs.”
Berry took over Louisiana-Monroe in December – he is a former head coach at Army and was Louisiana-Monroe’s offensive coordinator in 2004 and 2005. Already, big changes are afoot, with redshirt freshman Kolton Browning winning the quarterback job over incumbent Trey Revell, who has shifted to tight end.
Another redshirt freshman, Jyruss Edwards, will start at running back, with Frank Goodin recovering from a minor injury. Goodin, less than 900 yards from the school’s career rushing record, is expected to play.
Edwards is another X-factor the Razorbacks will have to account for, and it’s hard to be sure how Berry will use him or anyone else. Berry and Arkansas wide receivers coach Kris Cinkovich both served on the UNLV staff as recently as last year, and Cinkovich apparently did a little bit of prying recently.
“He was trying to bait me into, the other day, kind of giving some things up,” Berry said. “I said, `Cink, you know me better than that.”’
Add A Comment