Hog Calls : Petrino's prediction? Kicking game will be much improved

Posted: July 27, 2009 at 7:39 a.m.

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HOOVER, Ala. — You wouldn't expect a University of Arkansas football coach saying something more significant at a contrived fan event in Fayetteville than before the entire South's main media outlets at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala.

Yet that seems true of Bobby Petrino. At last week's kickoff to the "100 years of Razorbacks Celebration" commemorating coach Hugo Bezdek's changing the Arkansas Cardinals to the Arkansas Razorbacks, Petrino departed from a coach's typical preseason prognostication of his football team.

Now he started the celebration sounding like every football coach at a July gathering.

"We will be," Petrino said, "very exciting and wide open on offense and very aggressive and very hardnosed and aggressive on defense."

Can you ever recall a coach promising a boring, stodgy offense and guaranteeing a weak-kneed, pacifist defense?

However it was Petrino's volunteered comment on the kicking game, a topic many coaches assume too nuts and bolts dull to inspire a rah-rah fan setting, that prompted interest here.

Petrino closed the "aggressive wide open offense and hard-nosed aggressive" defense comment with "and much more sound and experienced in the kicking game."

Actually, the Hogs aren't as experienced in the punting part of the kicking game. Jeremy Davis has graduated, leaving brand new junior college transfer Briton Forester as the punter in waiting, with quarterback Ryan Mallett in reserve.

Other than maybe a quick-kick, Petrino and quarterbacks coach Garrick McGee obviously would prefer Mallett quarterbacking than punting.

On the placekicking side, Alex Tejada, the junior from Springdalewith the earnest, want to root for but past queasiness causing inconsistency, has much to prove.

Yet there's a lot more to the kicking game than kicking.

That's why Petrino as a matter of fact predicts a better kicking game.

From protecting the punter to covering the punts and kickoffs and returning punts and kickoffs, Petrino sees so many of the rookies he had to use last year now knowing what it takes to become special on special teams.

So any true freshman playing on this season's special teams likely will have displayed talents truly special in the forthcoming August preseason.

Last season's worst of both worlds scenario had a new staff sorting through a nearly new team that had graduated many of its key special teamers. The Hogs played 14 scholarship true freshmen in 2008. Most were rookie regulars on special teams.

Also, there's now a special teams coaching emphasis not as especially emphasized in 2008.

Kirk Botkin, last year's special teams coach, is a good coach and good guy with good credentials. He not only has college special teams coaching experience but was a NFL special-teamer and tight end after being the Razorbacks' tight end from 1990-93. He was Arkansas' first-ever first-team All-SEC selection in the UA's 1992 maiden SEC season and repeated All-SEC in '93.

But Botkin, in his second year coaching Razorbacks defensive ends, was a D-line coach first and special teams coach second last year. Also, he had never previously worked under Petrino to know exactly what Petrino wants exacted on special teams.

John L. Smith, hired last spring as special teams coordinator, hadn't worked for Petrino, either.

Petrino worked for him. Smith was the head coach when Petrino was an assistant at Utah State and Louisville.

Smith made special teams, Petrino has said, a head coaching specialty.

While serving on Petrino's Willy Robinson coordinated defensive staff, Smith is coaching just one position, outside linebacker. When Smith has extra special teams concerns, that one linebacker spot can always get additional supervision from linebackers coach Reggie Johnson as it did last year.

So Smith most definitely coordinates special teams first and coaches defense second.

"I think he will be a tremendous asset to us," Petrino told media at SEC Media Days. "John L.'s the kind of a guy that raised me in this profession, taught me a lot about coaching. When I had an opportunity to hire him back as our special teams coordinator, it didn't take long to figure out that would be the right thing to do. He's brought a lot of experience to our staff. I know that he'll help me a lot as the head football coach."◊◊ ◊

Nate Allen's Razorback column appears Mondays in The Daily Record.

The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Sports, Pages 6 on 07/27/2009

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