UA: Rutgers all that matters now

Arkansas linebacker Alonzo Highsmith (right), shown tackling Alabama’s T.J.Yeldon during last Saturday’s 52-0 loss to the Crimson Tide, helped tear down a season schedule in the Razorbacks’ weight room, leaving only Saturday’s game against Rutgers.
Arkansas linebacker Alonzo Highsmith (right), shown tackling Alabama’s T.J.Yeldon during last Saturday’s 52-0 loss to the Crimson Tide, helped tear down a season schedule in the Razorbacks’ weight room, leaving only Saturday’s game against Rutgers.

— Arkansas linebacker Alonzo Highsmith didn’t want his teammates preoccupied with what it would take for the Razorbacks to finish with nine consecutive victories and a 10-2 record.

So Highsmith, a senior team captain, and Arkansas strength and conditioning coach Jason Veltkamp pulled down the Razorbacks’ schedule in the weight room at Walker Pavilion.

They left one opponent on the schedule board: Rutgers.

“I just walked in there and I was just like, man, nothing else matters except for this week,” Highsmith said. “We’re not looking forward, we’re not looking back.”

Highsmith said he was talking during a workout with the strength coaches when he looked up and saw the schedule, which was a series of magnetic strips on the board with team names on them.

“When I told Coach V he was like, ‘That’s a great idea,’ and he jumped up and knocked them down first and then I just went over there and helped him,” Highsmith said.

“Symbolically the kids are saying that we don’t want to look at anything other than the Rutgers game ... which is a great statement for him to make and kind of the mind- set of our football team,” Arkansas Coach John L. Smith said.

The Razorbacks opened the season No. 10 in The Associated Press top 25 poll, but they have fallen out after losing back-to-back games to Louisiana-Monroe and No. 1 Alabama. A team that talked openly about the national championship in the preseason has narrowed its focus sharply in an effort to head off a losing streak.

“Obviously the last two games were not something that you want to have happen,” offensive coordinator Paul Petrino said. “But the most important thing right now is that I think you win this week, give it everything you’ve got, throw everything into it. ... We’ve got to go win this week.”

Junior quarterback/receiver Brandon Mitchell said the Razorbacks know what it takes to regroup.

“It might be cliche, but you have to put losses behind you and just move on to the next week. You can’t let a team beat you twice,” Mitchell said.

“Well, big things still can happen,” tailback Knile Davis said. “We just have to start with a win.”

Smith has stressed that the only way to recover is for team members to stay united and avoid acrimony.

“I have total confidence in these guys and that the seniors are going to pull us together and the rest of the team are going to pull together, and I don’t think they’re going to splinter and everybody start pointing fingers and going their own way,” he said.

The Razorbacks don’t have to look far for examples of teams that have rebounded from rough starts.

The 2006 Razorbacks lost 50-14 at home to No. 6 Southern California before reeling off 10 consecutive victories to reach the SEC Championship Game. Last year, Georgia fell to Boise State and South Carolina to open the season and then won 10 consecutive games and the SEC East title.

“You have to keep trusting your players, your players have to trust each other and trust the coaches,” Georgia Coach Mark Richt said. “We kept grinding on what we believed in. We didn’t feel like it was time to push any kind of panic button and try and reinvent anything. We had just invested too much time and too much energy on everything that we believed in.”

Richt’s Bulldogs were 0-2 in early 2011 after a 6-7 season, so the negativity around their program was particularly harsh. Richt said the coaching staff shielded themselves by diving into their work, but the players had it tougher.

“They’re so social media indoctrinated that they can’t help but see what’s going on out there and hear what’s going on out there,” he said. “That’s why it’s such a big job for us as a staff to maintain that positive mental attitude when they walk into the building.”

Petrino said the Razorbacks want to give fans something to be happy about Saturday in their last home game for the next three weeks.

“We’ve got to win,” he said. “It’ll be great to have everybody out there fired up and win and then get ready to go on the road and win two tough ones, but all we’ve got to worry about right now is this week.”

Sports, Pages 19 on 09/20/2012

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