Craddock aims to do work worth high honor

It’s always the same when there is staff turnover in college football. The walls in the coaching offices are bare for the first six months.

There’s just not time to decorate. There may be a box of pictures under a desk until well into the summer. Recruiting and spring training, then followed by another recruiting period, just wipe away the months.

Arkansas offensive coordinator Joe Craddock has hung a few goodies on the walls of his office but not much.

There is one notable plaque, and it’s more of a goal than a prize. Last year at SMU he was the staff’s nomination for the Broyles Award, the nation’s top assistant coach.

“That meant a lot just to be nominated,” Craddock said. “I’ve told my quarterbacks that the goal is to win it as an Arkansas assistant. Wouldn’t that be special? I’m not sure it has ever been done by an Arkansas coach.”

It was something to ponder, as Reynolds Razorback Stadium loomed out Craddock’s office window. The words on the top of the stadium filled up the view: Frank Broyles Field.

“Of course, that’s not an individual award,” Craddock said. “You get that when your side of the ball and your team does well. I understand that and so do our players. We’ve talked about it.

“But my goal is to do that here. It would mean a lot.”

Craddock knows the history. He’s aware of the Broyles legacy and the assistants who worked for the late Arkansas coach and athletics director. He listed the names of some of the great assistants and perked up when a reporter talked of how Broyles, who passed away last August, lured some of the greats to Fayetteville.

Of course, John “Chief” Chavis, the new Arkansas defensive coordinator won the Broyles Award while coaching at LSU. Craddock can spend an entire interview talking about his new staff mate.

Craddock, 32, speaks of Chavis, the 61-year-old veteran defensive coordinator, in glowing terms.

“He’s awesome,” Craddock said. “We didn’t know Chief when we got here, but it’s been great. We’ve had talks about getting away to hunt or play golf. We haven’t done either one, but we are looking forward to that.

“He’s been really good for me and our staff. We lean on him about the SEC. None of us on the offensive side — or Coach (Chad) Morris — have been in the SEC, and there are just some things that are different.

“I’ll give you an example: The SEC requires that a junior college player have three consecutive semesters at the last school to be eligible. That came up.

“There are just kind of some small things. The SEC is just different in some areas. He is able to shed light on those things.”

Craddock said Chavis loves his golf.

“We have not played, but that’s going to happen before the season starts,” Craddock said.

The favorite would be Craddock in that game. The scouting report is don’t play him from the forward tees. Barry Lunney Jr. was probably the top golfer on the last staff. Craddock might be better.

“I can take Lunney,” Craddock said. “Lunney would be the first to tell you if he gets me to the middle tees, he’s got a chance, but not if we go back to the tips.”

There was a match that ended even at The Alotian Golf Club near Little Rock.

“He knew the course,” Craddock said. “I hadn’t seen it, and there were things that got me. I hit it as good as I’ve ever hit it but had trouble around the green.

“My problem is my short game. I’m good tee to green, but I guess there just isn’t enough time on the golf course in the offseason to get the short game decent. I get frustrated on the greens because I never seem to make a putt.

“The scouting report is out on me, probably tabbed as best (golfer) on the staff.”

Craddock said both his grandfather and father — also Joe Craddock — are fine golfers. It’s in his genes. His father tried out for the golf team at Auburn, missing by one shot.

There just hasn’t been much time for golf, or anything else, since the staff arrived from Dallas. But there is an awareness of what they found in the Ozarks, beauty and a slower pace than the Metroplex.

“It’s been great,” Craddock said. “Moving from Dallas to Fayetteville is a lot more my speed. I’m not a big city person. Arkansas — and Fayetteville especially — reminds me so much of my hometown.

“Where I’m from (Chelsea, Ala., just south of Birmingham) there is Double Oak Mountain. Stuff like that reminds me of the Ozarks. It’s not quite the size of the Ozarks, but the scenery and the hill country type of deal is a lot more what I’m used to from a scenery standpoint. I feel so much more at home now than I did in the past three years in Dallas.

“The hunting and fishing is great there. So I’m comfortable here. The hunting we have at home is good, but we don’t have the duck hunting there that I know is in Arkansas. I’m looking forward to that. I want to go, and I’m not high maintenance.

“I love turkey hunting. Chief and I have talked about getting out to turkey hunt.

“Hopefully, once we get this thing rocking and rolling, we get some time to hunt because I know it’s good all around here.”

There has been work to do around the office this summer. Players meet with coaches on a daily basis.

“We’ve been around the office quite some time ever since they got into summer (school),” Craddock said. “The NCAA has passed new legislation that allows us to meet with our players and make it mandatory. We’ve met with those guys and go through our installs.

“I told them when we got started in June that we are not going back day one when we start Aug. 3. To be successful in this league we are going to have our tools in the tool box. We will have more install than less to compete this year.

“So we reminded them that they have to take the summer seriously. That’s not just off the field, but on the field. They must know the intricate details of our offense. It’s not just understanding what you are supposed to do on each play, but know what the guy next to you is supposed to do, too.

“That’s what we covered in our first meeting this week, just going through the finer details of protections and run schemes. I want our running backs to know exactly what the offensive line is doing and our line knows what the running backs are doing. Obviously, the quarterbacks have to know what all those guys are doing.”

Coaches can attend the workouts in the weight room.

“They are working extremely hard in the weight room,” Craddock said. “We go in there at 7:30 and 8 in the morning and watch those guys lift and run. You can see already a transformation of their bodies.

“A couple that I really noticed a transformation of their bodies are two of our tight ends, Jeremy Patton and C. J. O’Grady. Those guys were kind of fat boys when we got here. They’ve really transformed, losing some body fat. They have put on some good muscle mass.

“Those are two that have caught my eye, but there are a lot of guys who are transforming their bodies in just a short amount of time. The strength staff is doing a great job of working them hard.

“All of our guys still seem so excited about the change and what we are doing in the weight room.”

Coaches are given a couple of weeks of vacation in July. It’s spaced out enough that will allow for two coaches to remain in the office at all time.

Craddock planned a trip to Alabama to meet with some of his old coaching buddies and to hang around with his father in Chelsea. There might be some fishing and/ or golf. There will also be a week on the Destin, Fla., beaches with his wife, Abby, and daughter, Charlie.

“Charlie is 18 months, and it’s time that I plug in some with her,” Craddock said. “A lot has happened in the last six or seven months, and I need to make sure she knows who her dad is!

“It’s been interesting, there have been some times when I’m around that she acts up a little. I think she’s trying to get her dad’s attention because daddy is not always around, so I’m going to plug back in with her.

“We will recharge the batteries, get the mind charged again.”

While at Chelsea, there will be some visits with friends coaching around the country at the college level.

“We will just visit and bounce ideas off of each other,” Craddock said. “We will be hanging out and having a good time, but it will still be a little bit of business.

“I’ll have one or two days at home just hanging out at my Paw-paw’s farm. I want to do a little fishing with my dad. He’s retired. I like bass fishing, but my dad is a crappie fisherman. So we may do that.”

While there will be some down time, Craddock said it’s not a complete step away.

“You just are not able to do that,” he said. “I’ll be checking in daily. I’ll be in contact every day with our strength staff. I’ll constantly check in with the coach in the office to see how our player meetings are going.”

Recruiting never stops, although it’s supposed to be a dead period. Craddock noted that Father’s Day included long periods returning texts from recruits.

“I can’t tell you how many texts I got from recruits on (Father’s Day),” he said. “Some of it was just a text to wish me a happy Father’s Day, but some were wanting to talk. It never stops. It’s a constant. Kids can’t come on campus during this period, and that’s what allows us to take a vacation.”

Craddock has had plenty of meeting time with his group of quarterbacks. He’s given them goals, including weight.

“The biggest one who has to change his body is Cole (Kelley),” Craddock said. “We told him to lose about 15 pounds this summer. So when August sets in, we hope to see a lot different quarterback, one with a lot less weight who is able to move a lot better than he already does.

“We challenged him, and he’s making some progress. I told him he’s not going to lose 15 in two weeks. It’s a process. You try to lose two pounds each week, and you can get to that goal.

“We are trying to get him on a good plan, a cardio plan on top of his workout so he can lose weight.

“I know we had a quarterback last year, Ben Hicks (at SMU), do the same thing. He was a completely different player. We said, ‘Hey, Cole, we’ve seen it done. If you will do it, you will feel a lot better about yourself, you will move better, be in better condition.’”

About the others, Craddock said Daulton Hyatt is headed the other direction on the scales.

“Hyatt has added some good weight,” Craddock said. “Ty Storey is maintaining his weight, doing a great job with what he does, just very consistent doing the little things right.”

Freshman quarterbacks John Stephen Jones and Connor Noland have impressed in a short time.

“They’ve been here only a couple of weeks, but you can see them changing a little bit,” Craddock said. “I’m not going to say it’s huge, but you do see a little bit. We’ve got them at a good training table and eating healthier, and working out properly in a short period of time.”

There are no coaches at the on-field workouts with a football that are voluntary. So Craddock could not answer the question about any gains in speed as far as snapping the football. The ability to run plays in rapid succession was not there in the spring, at least to what Morris and Craddock sought.

“The frustration in the spring is that we knew how fast it could have been, and we weren’t seeing it,” Craddock said. “We know that it’s going to get better as they understand the offense more over the summer. That will make us a lot faster.

“If we do the things right this summer, we’ll be fine as far as (tempo) when Aug. 3 gets here.”

It’s so far so good as far as the new quarterbacks, Jones and Noland.

“I asked them questions about our first two days of install in our meeting to start this week,” Craddock said. “I was impressed with what they knew as far as base rules. They did a very good job. Those guys are learning at a fast pace.”

The pace may slow a bit over the next three weeks for Craddock, then it will take off again in the middle of July. The goal is to have the putting fine tuned for perhaps one last staff golf game.

Perhaps then it will be time to make a run at the Broyles Award.

Clay Henry can be reached at chenry@ nwadg.com .

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