Things were moving pretty fast last night because of the late ending time for the scrimmage.
I basically grabbed what coaches and players I could for interviews, ran to the media room and filed a story as quick as possible.
But now that we’re starting to look back on the scrimmage, there are a few more things worth sharing. One of them is this short question-and-answer session I had with Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett after he completed 31 of 39 passes for 484 yards and 5 touchdowns. Let me stress one point: This isn’t a Q&A filled with Mallett’s deep thoughts entering his junior season. It’s a quick Q&A after a scrimmage that ended after 9 p.m. It’s safe to say I was in a hurry to get off the field. And so was he.
But here are his thoughts on the offense after a big night and two weeks of preseason camp:
Q: What did you think of the offense’s performance tonight?
A: “It felt good to get back there in the game atmosphere and really get the game speed and the game clock going and the clock running. The communication was good and I think we really grew as an offense tonight. And as a team.”
Q: How important are these “mock” games?
A: “I think it’s really good. Especially for the young guys who haven’t played in the tempo of an SEC game. It was just like that tempo, but probably a little faster than that without TV timeouts and all that (stuff). But I thiink it was really well.”
Q: It looked like everyone got involved. Did you feel like you spread the ball around well?
A: “When you’ve got that many guys that can run and catch and get open, it makes my job a lot easier. I love having all these guys out here to get the ball to.”
Q: Greg Childs was the most productive target. How did it feel to see him open all night?
A: “Greg got open. He played at another level tonight. That’s what we expect out of him every day. He knows that. He’s really gong to start picking it up I believe.”
Q: You guys struggled in the second half of the first scrimmage. Was this an indication you have gotten over that?
A: “One thing we still need to work on is the first series of the second half. It happened to us a couple times last year. We came out slow. It’s a focal point we’re going to have coming into the season is working on that.”
Q: You’re two weeks into camp and there are two weeks until the opener. So at the midway point, where are you as an offense?
A: “This two weeks has really made us grow as a team. We’ve taken a lot of strides since the first day. If we go and watch the film, we’re going to look at it and see what mistakes were made and what we’ve got to do better to keep growing. We can’t get complacent at all.”
— Robbie Neiswanger • Arkansas News Bureau
