Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman touched on several topics during Wednesday’s weekly SEC Teleconference, including a brewing position battle ahead of Saturday’s trip to Starkville:
Position battle brewing on offensive line
“Both (Patrick) Kutas and (Keyshawn) Blackstock have gone half and half and there’s still a battle going on there. We still don’t know who we’re going to start there. I think they’ll both play and I think it’s been a good competition this week and both of them have played well.
“It’s obviously a competition and we’re going to have to run one of them out there with the ones and we will figure that out after today and tomorrow’s practice but both of them have had a good week of practice.”
Pittman will see a familiar face in Starkville
“(Cody Kennedy) has done an outstanding job over at Mississippi State and he did for us. The last year wasn’t good, and he understands that, and we all understand that but the year before that we were really good up front. Cody is from that area and when that job came open, I’m sure Coach Lebby reached out to him and I’m happy for Cody, I love him who was one of my GA’s and he’s great success and doing a fine job over there at Mississippi State.”
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Andrew Armstrong taking game to new heights
“I’m really happy for him, I think a lot of it and I think he would say the same is his maturity. He always believed that he could play at this level which we have too, and I think it’s his maturity and a quarterback looks for a certain guy obviously he goes through his reads, but I think you earn that ability to be that guy the quarterback finds.
“I think Taylen and him have a great relationship and he’s earned that, but I think overall it’s just his maturity. Obviously, coming in here Bobby and Ronnie have done a great job with his route running and I think he’s better there. I think he’s catching the ball extremely well and playing with a high amount of confidence and I’m happy for him.”
Razorbacks ready for cowbells
“Well we played the bells all day yesterday going to do it again today. To me that’s the biggest advantage that you have not necessarily the travel, the travel is convenient with the airlines, and you have your own plane. Obviously, it’s a little bit different with Mississippi State because of the travel you have to have the day of the game.
“Really the advantage for the game is the crowd, the home crowd and you have to do your best to take that away, and to do that you have to stim a lot in practice because that’s what most home teams do. You have to make sure you practice and make sure you have the noise coming from the right areas, I remember my first year here we had crowd noise coming from the side and the noise obviously isn’t coming from the side in the game it comes from about a 45-degree angle.
“So we had to change where our noise was coming from, and it helped us tremendously. The biggest thing is to be able to handle the noise and so far on the road we’ve done a pretty good job with that.”
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“I think whenever the injury report comes out tonight that Ja’Quinden (Jackson) will be questionable, more doubtful really, and Rodney Hill will be probable.”
Re-establishing the run game on the road
“I think it’s big for us and we started practicing hard at it the first two days of the week and we have a great plan for it today too. We also got to take pressure off our quarterback and our receivers and our offensive line for that matter for 3rd down. Sometimes the game dictates where you are and how many runs that you do.
“Every time you turn around you want to have success, and we haven’t done that necessarily in the latter part of the last 2-3 games and we’re trying to get it back because we know that’s a big vital part of us having opportunities to win.”
Rodney Hill’s Toughness
“Yeah he’s just a fearless guy and a wonderful kid first of all. He’s also just a fearless runner and we saw that before he entered the transfer portal for Florida State in that first game when they took on LSU a few years back.”
“He is slight as you mentioned but he brings his style of running to the room and he’s a wonderful kid. We need him back just because of his toughness and the way that he runs and hopefully that becomes infectious.”