Hog Calls

Hogs football gets practice week; baseball gets bump

FAYETTEVILLE — If spring football practice is half as important as college coaches claim, then this past week was huge for the 2019 Arkansas Razorbacks.

Those December bowl practices without game week pressure on time and emphasis allow opportunities for the full-time coaches to coach and scrimmage the redshirts and seldom-used reserves.

Once the season begins those players mostly are supervised by grad assistants as they practice on the scout team impersonating opponents.

Needing a minimum 6-6 finish to be bowl eligible, the only December or January bowling available for these 2-7 Razorbacks involves 10 pins and an alley.

So this week’s Tuesday through Thursday bye week practices marked the only occasions since the August preseason that first-year Arkansas Coach Chad Morris and his staff could extensively scrimmage, evaluate and spend extra time coaching those not otherwise game day involved.

Arkansas has three games left starting next Saturday against nationally No. 3 LSU.

BENNIE BASEBALL LEGACY

Andrew Benintendi, as the Razorbacks only Golden Spikes Award winner (college baseball’s equivalent to football’s Heisman) and now World Series champion Boston Red Sox left fielder, exerts a legacy for Coach Dave Van Horn’s Razorbacks bound to help recruiting every time baseball broadcasters mention Benintendi and Arkansas in the same breath.

However, even before Benintendi’s Golden Spikes 2015 season when his .376 batting average, 20 home runs, 57 RBIs propelled Van Horn’s Razorbacks to the College World Series and Benintendi to the Red Sox, Benintendi left an Arkansas legacy. It’s a legacy helping among other Razorbacks 2018 All-American pitcher Blaine Knight, 2018 All-SEC second baseman Carson Shaddy and likely will help 2018 Freshman All-American Razorbacks Heston Kjerstad and Casey Martin.

Summer ball after the college season long has been a college baseball standard.

And it still makes sense for a very technique-oriented sport that needs to be played for a player to improve.

However, after Benintendi, the 2013 National High School Player of the Year, looked haggard and worn down battling a couple of injuries and hitting .276 with one home run and 27 RBIs for 61 games as a 2014 freshman, Van Horn sent him home with summer orders to do more weight lifting than bat swinging.

He came back that fall mentally refreshed and physically belting 20 home runs with his .376 batting average and 57 RBIs.

“We just said, ‘Hey, you don’t need to go to summer ball,’” Van Horn said. “Just go home, lift, get healthy and run. He came back in the fall, and we were like ‘Whoa! This is a different guy!’ You could tell he was going to have a big year.”

Off that it worked for Benintendi influence, Van Horn said he kept now pro players Knight and Shaddy working out at home for the summer preceding their best college campaign.

A summer of rest and weights is bound to refresh outfielder Kjerstad, playing all 69 games, and infielder Martin playing 67 games, for the 2018 national runner-up Razorbacks, Van Horn said.

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