Corners battling for spot

Arkansas defender Carroll Washington dives after Florida punt returner Loucheiz Purifoy as he runs back a punt in the 4th quarter of Saturday night's game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

Arkansas defender Carroll Washington dives after Florida punt returner Loucheiz Purifoy as he runs back a punt in the 4th quarter of Saturday night's game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

FAYETTEVILLE - With Arkansas starting cornerback Will Hines out with a broken arm for several weeks, junior Carroll Washington and redshirt freshman Jared Collins are battling for a starting job.

“Still up in the air right now,” defensive coordinator Chris Ash said. “Jared probably has the upper hand, but both of them have been practicing and we’ll decide that [today].”

Cornerbacks coach Taver Johnson said Collins and Washington have practiced well this week and that both might end up playing Saturday against South Carolina.

“We just have to go through the rest of the week and then find out what’s going to happen,” Johnson said.

Coach Bret Bielema said Hines was starting to play his best football and will be a tough player to replace.

Clowney update

South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney went through practice with a full contact jersey Wednesday, giving the All-American a good shot at playing in Saturday’s 11:21 a.m. kickoff against Arkansas.

“Hopefully by the weekend [he’ll] be able to help us out a bit,” Gamecocks Coach Steve Spurrier said.

Hands on

Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema said he sent a tape to SEC officials regarding the play of Florida’s pass defenders last week.

Bielema made the remark when commenting about the abnormal number of drops from Arkansas’ receivers last week.

“Those weren’t just receiver-related,” he said.

“They were protection related, they were quarterback-related, they were throw-related. … Obviously Florida played a hand in it as well.

“Our guys had to get used to getting off of press coverage. We know Florida gets a little handsy. Sent in a number of plays to the office about just them grabbing us and getting an understanding of what we expect in the future. That’s a great learning curve for guys to understand that those things aren’t getting called and how to deal with it.”

Turnover trouble

Arkansas quarterback Brandon Allen has thrown three interceptions and lost one fumble in the two games since his return from a sprained shoulder kept him out of the Hogs’ 28-24 loss at Rutgers on Sept. 21.

Two of the interceptions were returned for touchdowns.

“Those kind of things don’t help our offense,” Allen said. “Any time you get interceptions or a fumble like that, it’s tough. It puts our defense in a hard position.

… You can’t give the ball to any team in the SEC. They’re going to make you pay for it and that’s exactly what Florida did.”

Spurrier speaks

South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier is known for telling it like he sees it, and he added to that reputation Wednesday with an assessment of the Gamecocks’ series against Arkansas.

Speaking on the weekly SEC coaches teleconference, Spurrier said of the atmosphere at Arkansas, “It’s loud and they’ve outplayed us. I think the last time we were there, like Bobby Petrino said, they could have scored 65 on us that night.

“They dropped passes all over the place, dropped touchdowns, and we somehow or another got it 30-28, and of course they ran the kickoff past midfield and scored on that possession and put it out of reach.

The Razorbacks won that game 44-28.

Spurrier’s first South Carolina team in 2005 won 14-10 at Arkansas, but he’s 3-5 against the Razorbacks in his latest gig.

“They’ve outplayed us every time we’ve been out there since ’05,” Spurrier said. “Well, they actually outplayed us that day, but somehow or the other we squirmed around and beat them 14-10.

“It’ll be difficult. We know that.”

Marshall muffs

Freshman Korliss Marshall, who had an energetic debut against Texas A&M, made a couple of big errors in his second game last week but is expected to continue as one of the Hogs’ kick returners.

Marshall muffed a kickoff return late in the first half that rolled out of bounds on the Hogs’ 8. That mistake didn’t prove costly, as Arkansas took a knee on the next play to run out the first half clock.

After Florida scored to go ahead 24-7 on its first possession of the second half, the Gators kicked off deep near the sideline and Marshall erred in catching the kick as he was stepping out at the 3.

“Those are learning experiences,” Coach Bret Bielema said. “We’ve talked to him about it before.

Sometimes you’ve got to burn your finger on that hot stove to fully learn your lesson. He’ll be back there.

We’ll give him another shot. We’ll give him another opportunity to be around the football.”

Tackle talk

Brey Cook is preparing to start his second game at right tackle, his first position with the Hogs, after starting the first four at right guard.

“It’s fun to come back to my tackle position that I played all through high school and my first couple seasons here,” he said. “I believe I had some success Saturday, and I look forward to coming out and continuing to improve my game.”

Cook and Grady Ollison split time against Texas A&M at right tackle, where Ollison has made five starts.

Ollison suffered an ankle injury in Week 3 against Southern Miss.

“I think that Brey’s a little ahead of him, obviously, because we played him,” offensive line coach Sam Pittman said. “Part of Grady’s thing is he’s been hurt and he played hurt and he didn’t play well when he was hurt.”

Pittman said Ollison’s ankle is almost fully healed.

Sports, Pages 22 on 10/10/2013