UA FOOTBALL

Defense mixing, matching

Arkansas defender Jarrett Lake chassis Florida quarterback Tyler Murphy out of the pocket during Saturday night's game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla.
Arkansas defender Jarrett Lake chassis Florida quarterback Tyler Murphy out of the pocket during Saturday night's game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla.

FAYETTEVILLE - A key injury at cornerback, a position shuffle and open field tackling all impacted the Arkansas defense last week.

The Razorbacks lost cornerback Will Hines for several weeks with a broken arm, leading to a position battle this week between junior-college transfer Carroll Washington and redshirt freshman Jared Collins for a starting job opposite Tevin Mitchel.

Washington ended up winning the battle, but he will face a difficult initiation Saturday against No. 14 South Carolina, a team that tests defenses with a fast receiving corps, a bruising tailback in Mike Davis and the designed and broken-play running of quarterback Connor Shaw.

“It doesn’t matter who we’re defending, we need to tackle, we need to play the ball in the air, we need to run to the ball,” cornerbacks coach Taver Johnson said. “All of those things we’ve preached since when we came together as a staff, as a unit.”

It will be Washington’s first start.

Coach Bret Bielema said Washington began getting more reps at corner in practice the week after Collins suffered a concussion against Southern Miss in the third game and benefited from them.

“He capitalized on it and has continued to do so,” Bielema said. “He’s done a good job on special teams, so I’m excited to see him get out there and play.”

Washington, who played significant snaps in the second half against Texas A&M after Mitchel was forced out with an injury, said the Gamecocks’ receivers present new challenges.

“They’re shorter guys than we’re used to, and by being shorter they’re quicker and fast and elusive,” Washington said. “We’re working on our tackling, because the Florida game we had missed tackles and we have to step it up.”

That’s where Mitchel comes in. The junior had a tackle for loss on Florida’s first offensive snap last week, but he whiffed on a tackle attempt against shifty Solomon Patton just before halftime and then misjudged a breakup try on another play, helping Patton turn simple curl routes into touchdown plays of 51 and 38 yards.

“He understands it only takes one play when you play that position, whether it be good or bad,” Johnson said. “You can’t get too high or too low, but you can’t give up any big ones.

“He’s disappointed. He was disappointed when it happened. But he’s hungry. You have to have amnesia when you play that position as well. The thing we have to do is not make the same mistakes twice.”

Previously, the Arkansas secondary dealt with starting strong safety Rohan Gaines’ knee injury, which knocked him out for two games and slowed him for two more, forcing Eric Bennett and Alan Turner to play almost every snap at the safety spots for long stretches.

“Depth has been a concern all the way back to last spring,” defensive coordinator Chris Ash said. “We’ve tried to do everything we can to build depth and bring guys along and develop them so they can be ready for situations like this, when somebody goes down.”

At linebacker, Jarrett Lake started in the middle last week, with Braylon Mitchell sliding over to Lake’s spot on the weak side and Martrell Spaight starting on the strong side, an arrangement Bielema called “our best three linebacker combination for sure.”

“We’ve kind of dabbled around with different guys,” Bielema said. “I would have never in a million years thought to put J. Lake at mike, but as the season has wore on he’s definitely a guy that’s very active.”

Mitchell, Lake and Spaight are the right mix, based on their performance last Saturday at Florida, Ash said.

“At least with our run defense and our linebackers’ run fits, it was probably the best that we’ve played so far this season as a trio,” he said.

Linebackers coach Randy Shannon said steady progress has been made at linebacker, “but we need to keep pushing and make more.”

“I’ve got to develop guys to get depth. It’s nothing against the who, what, when, why and how. It’s just guys who show up that are physically ready and picking things up. Those are the guys we go with.”

Up next SOUTH CAROLINA AT ARKANSAS

WHEN 11:21 a.m. Saturday WHERE Reynolds Razorback Stadium, Fayetteville RECORDS Arkansas 3-3, 0-2 SEC; South Carolina 4-1, 2-1 TV KATV, channel 7, in Little Rock; KHBS/KHOG, channels 40/29, in Northwest Arkansas; KAIT, channel 8, in Jonesboro RADIO Razorback Sports Network

Sports, Pages 19 on 10/11/2013

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