Notes From First Fall Scrimmage

Arkansas ended the first full week of fall camp with a 140 play scrimmage. You can check out some unofficial stats here. Obviously there aren’t any huge takeaways to be made but these scrimmages do help us learn more about who is winning position battles, what units look improved and who might surprise us this year.

First at the QB position, Austin Allen was his usual efficient self. He went 19-22 and cleared 300 yards with a long touchdown to La’Michael Pettway. Ty Storey looks to still have the lead for the back up spot as he came out with the 2’s first. Both he and Cole Kelley had solid but unspectacular stat lines.

The other notables on offense were Pettway, who showed some deep threat ability with a 65 yard and 67 yard catch. Chase Hayden had an outstanding day including an 74 yard touchdown run. He showed his vision and speed during the scrimmage. Devwah Whaley also had 77 yards on 20 carries.

The offensive line got positive reviews in pass protection. They had to deal with McTelvin Agim being a pain all day but kept a good pocket for much of the day.

Agim was one of the stars on defense, another positive sign was the play of some younger LB’s. A lot of them are going to be thrown into the fire this season and will be relied upon fast. Guys like Giovanni LaFrance and Grant Morgan (Drew Morgan’s brother) were very active and physical all game. The more Arkansas can get out of young linebackers the better for the defense as a whole.

A handful of contributors sat out for precautionary reasons. Jared Cornelius, Brandon Martin, Dre Greenlaw, Cole Hedlund, Jeremy Patton, and Will Gragg were among those. The best news of the day was that the scrimmage finished without any major injuries.

With Hedlund out, Blake Mazza took the field goals and was a perfect 5-of-5. He didn’t take any longer than 36 yards however.

So what did we learn? We got a couple of names to keep an eye on at the beginning of the year. Hayden, Pettway, Morgan, and LaFrance are all guys who weren’t on the field much, if at all, last year and could be relied upon more this season.