FAYETTEVILLE -- If despite the pain of his sprain Dre Greenlaw felt fit to ascertain, he likely ascertained experiencing his senior present replaced by his freshman past last Saturday night.
Arkansas weakside linebacker Greenlaw compiled a phenomenal 10 tackles for just the first quarter of the Razorbacks' 55-20 season-opening victory over Eastern Illinois at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
A sprained ankle benched the Razorbacks' senior from Fayetteville the remaining three quarters.
On came true freshman weakside linebacker Bumper Pool like the 2015 ghost of Greenlaw's rookie past.
Back in the immediate postgame press conferences of 2015, former Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema often marveled at Greenlaw's true freshman performances just like Coach Chad Morris marveled during last Saturday night's postgame.
Hard not to marvel considering Pool's stats. For his debut second and third quarters, Pool made six tackles. He broke up a pass, blocked a point after attempt and recovered and returned a fumble 60 yards to the EIU five setting up quarterback Ty Storey's two-yard touchdown run.
"I thought Bumper Pool played exceptionally for a freshman put on the main stage as he was tonight," Morris said postgame. "A freshman who has really come on, his effort and energy and aggressiveness was great."
Shades of Bielema postgame past about rookie Greenlaw in 2015.
And shades of 2015 Monday press conferences after Saturdays past when Bielema, former defensive coordinator Robb Smith and former linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves, still praising Greenlaw's precocity, cited Greenlaw's rookie mistakes needing correcting. Sometimes the then two-time SEC Freshman of the Week succeeded in spite of himself, they said.
On Monday, Morris and defensive coordinator/linebackers coach John Chavis remained impressed with Pool. But they cautioned that the Lucas, Texas, native has much to work upon. Especially if Greenlaw late week still ails and must be replaced starting against the Colorado State University Rams on Saturday night in Fort Collins, Colo.
The lower division EIU Panthers out-rushed Arkansas 127-80, partially on Arkansas defensive misalignments, Morris and Chavis said.
"I was pleased watching Bumper Pool," Morris said Monday. "I think he's going to be a really good football player. But again a freshman that got misaligned at times. Freshman mistakes, you expect that. My challenge to this football team is let's don't come back here next Sunday and have to correct the same mistakes that we just made this past Saturday. If we can do that, we can keep getting better."
Chavis, old school, never praises a freshman too lavishly.
"I think Bumper came in and did a good job," Chavis allowed as his max kudos.
But the veteran coach rips himself before radically ripping a rookie.
"We had some misalignments but that's on me," Chavis said. "That's coaching. If it's misalignment, it's easy to fix. If it's a player that's not good enough, then it's a little tougher to fix."
Like the Bielema 2014 staff believing in Dre Greenlaw, the Morris 2018 staff obviously believes Bumper Pool already is good enough.
"We think we can fix those issues we have," Chavis said.
Sports on 09/05/2018