FAYETTEVILLE - Some might think an Arkansas Razorbacks offensive line coming off a 4-8 season needs a kick in the pants.
New Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman prefers a pat on the back.
Berating senior center Travis Swanson would be downright silly. The Rimington Award candidate is coming off a second-team All-SEC season and has been described as the “best center I have ever coached” by Coach Bret Bielema.
Berating the others, Pittman believes, would be counter-productive, too.
So he’s been all positive since his arrival in winter leading up to the Aug. 5 start of preseason practice.
“We are trying to bring confidence and swag and all those type things, and the only way you do that is to find the good things and go crazy about it, and the bad things they do you try and teach them to do it right,” Pittman said. “As long as they are giving effort, you have no problem. We didn’t have any problem last spring.”
Other than Swanson and senior starting left tackle David Hurd, Pittman plenty of confidence building to do. His two starting guards were miscast in 2011 as true freshman first-team tackles.
Meanwhile, a third-year sophomore reserve got a surprise tackle promotion just last spring.
It was a traumatic 2011 for Brey Cook of Springdale Har-Ber and Mitch Smothers of Springdale. Cook began the 2011 preseason as a first-team tackle. He struggled some and was replaced by Smothers, who also struggled as most true freshman offensive linemen do and soon joined Cook on the bench.
“Well, they are going to struggle,” Pittman said of what he learned beset Smothers and Cook in 2011. “Smothers [listed 6-4, 315] is going to simply because he doesn’t have the arm length at tackle you are going to need, and he was a freshman at the time. He has come a long way. We have got his confidence back now.
“I am excited to see what those two guys can do. Obviously them being local here it would be really cool if they went out there and played really well.”
Smothers was moved to guard the following spring, and interim coach John L. Smith did Arkansas a long-range favor redshirting Smothers in 2012.
Cook played all 12 games at tackle with six starts in 2012. He started last spring at tackle, but Pittman moved him inside to guard and promoted Grady Ollison to tackle, an athletic but light 6-5, 275 who is now in the 300-club, Bielema said last week.
“Moving Brey inside, he doesn’t have as much space to handle,” Pittman said. “He’s a big, physical guy [6-7, 327] and the [defensive] tackles don’t have as much space to run around him as the [defensive] ends do. I think it is the perfect move for him.
Now the only question is whether Ollison is still quick at 300 pounds?
“Of course, I haven’t been able to see him,” Pittman said of the June and July workouts that only strength coaches and trainers can attend. “But from what I understand he might be as quick or quicker.”
Sports, Pages 16 on 07/31/2013