By Harry King

LITTLE ROCK — Efficient comes up regularly in football conversations and can describe players at virtually every position.

There are linebackers who pursue on the correct angle, power runners who don’t waste time on shake and bake, wide receivers who run precise routes, even offensive units that avoid penalties and turnovers.

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino is efficient. With a single sentence, he warned one quarterback and encouraged another.

Reviewing the post spring practice landscape, he said, “As far as the quarterbacks go, if we were starting and playing Missouri State on Saturday, Ryan Mallett would start and the first series of the second quarter I would bring in Tyler Wilson and let him play that first series …”

The message to Mallett: Ryan, you are No. 1, but not by such a chasm that you can coast during the summer. Keep working because Wilson is on your heels.

Although Mallett’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication was not mentioned, the warning includes off-the-field.

The message to Wilson: Tyler, you have made real progress and more is on the horizon if you continue to grind. Keep working because you are on Mallett’s heels.

Petrino’s words were for public consumption and he has since met privately with every player, the perfect opportunity to clarify any perceived ambiguity.

The evaluation process will continue through two-a-days in August, but Petrino’s summation of the quarterbacks began with Mallett’s knowledge of the offense, insight that includes discerning a good play from a bad one.

Eventually, Petrino came around to a previous critique that Mallett sometimes dwells on a misread or a poor throw.

“Obviously, at quarterback you will have plays that don’t go well and you don’t make the throw right,” Petrino said. “You have to put that behind you and move on to the next play.”

Some such mistakes will be part of the Georgia game on Sept. 19 and Mallett’s reaction will be closely monitored. The same is true of the touchdown passes he throws against Missouri State in the Sept. 5 opener.

“I’ve coached quarterbacks who throw a touchdown pass and they want to celebrate it and think about that and then they don’t play well the next series,” Petrino said. “The number one thing you have to do at that position is play one play at a time and if that play is good or bad you evaluate it, put it behind you and move on to the next play.”

Mallett is also guilty of faulty footwork from time to time.

“If my feet would work as fast as my head was going, then we’d be going 100 miles an hour,” he said after spring practice.

As far as understanding the entire offense, Wilson is behind Mallett. A shotgun-only quarterback in high school, Wilson also needs to get better working under the center.

Petrino mentioned that using the backup quarterback on the first series of every second quarter was something he picked up from Howard Schnellenberger. From that same Schnellenberger school comes a more concise description of a must-have quarterback quality.

“You have to have a short memory to be a good quarterback,” Gary Nord, Schnellenberger’s offensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic, said recently.

Mallett and the other Razorbacks who left campus more than a week ago following semester finals are due back on Monday. In 111 days, he can begin to forget for real.

——-
Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.