Arkansas staff: Vacation over, time to get to work

Bret Bielema, Arkansas football coach, speaks to the media prior to the George Billingsley NWA Razorback Club Celebrity Scramble golf tournament at the Kingsdale Golf Complex in Bella Vista on Friday, July 25, 2014.
Bret Bielema, Arkansas football coach, speaks to the media prior to the George Billingsley NWA Razorback Club Celebrity Scramble golf tournament at the Kingsdale Golf Complex in Bella Vista on Friday, July 25, 2014.

BELLA VISTA -- The Arkansas football coaching staff showed up in force to the annual Northwest Arkansas Razorback Club Celebrity Scramble on Friday with a three "R" attitude toward the start of fall camp.

The coaches talked about being relaxed, refreshed and ready with the Razorbacks report next Sunday.

"I'm always excited for the season, and I tell my wife, when I quit being excited for the season it's time to walk away," said offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, who spent some down time in the mountains of Wyoming as usual.

"You go on vacation, you get time off, and then after about two weeks you're like, 'Well, it's done,' " linebackers coach Randy Shannon said. "You go on vacation, you spend money, which is money you don't have, and so you come back and you're refreshed and the guys are refreshed."

A new NCAA rule allowed coaching staffs to have up to eight hours of contact per week with their players over the summer for a variety of reasons like tape study, going over schemes and playbooks and strength and conditioning training.

Under the previous rule, only strength and conditioning coaches could interact with players over the summer.

"We really get to find out a lot when we get into training camp, but we really liked their attitude over the summer and we're looking forward to hitting the ground running when we get into fall camp," first-year defensive coordinator Robb Smith said.

"I think they did very well this summer, from the times I saw them," running backs coach Joel Thomas said of his unit's strength and conditioning work with coordinator Ben Herbert and his staff.

The Razorbacks, coming off a 3-9 season that included the program's first 0-8 SEC record, had a milder than normal start to the summer before facing the heat of trying to bounce back from the down year. Temperatures that have been tolerable for most of the summer seem to be cranking up for the dog days of August just in time for the start of camp.

Second-year Coach Bret Bielema said a better familiarity between the players and coaches should lead to improved performance this fall.

"I don't know how much people believe me when I say it, but the fact of knowing your roster that much better and the fact of knowing who they are -- where they're at, where they come from, knowing a little about their families -- goes a long, long way," he said. "From January, when we came back together, to where we are today, we just wanted our guys to get better at what we asked them to get better at.

"So we talked about [terminology], self-improvement, we talked about guys changing their bodies physically, taking a better approach to what they can handle off the field. All those things together, I think, have got everybody very positive."

Bielema, speaking at ESPN on Tuesday, pointed out that Alabama received a waiver to have a camp on the final day of a new two-week dead period from June 30 through July 13 when other teams didn't.

On his flight back from Bristol, Conn., he posted on his Twitter account, "Flying home from #espn car wash & had a complete day. Ready to play ball, have some fun along the way. Not trying to make friends! #WoooPig."

He explained Friday that he had read comments about him asking how Alabama received a waiver.

" I'm going to be who I am, no matter what," he said. "I want our players to approach it and do what they do. If that offends you, that's your problem. That's your prerogative. I didn't mean it as a way to make any statement other than I'm not going to make a statement trying to gain friends."

The Razorbacks wrapped up their summer conditioning work Thursday evening with the larger players conducting a squat max exhibition on the field at Reynolds Razorback Stadium with teammates, recruits and parents watching.

"It was a pretty unique atmosphere," Bielema said, who credited Herbert with coming up with the format of positioning the squat lift near the goal line to symbolize trying to score from 1-yard out or defending the goal line.

"I knew our lighter guys would get into it," Bielema said, "and the pretty boys all rallied around those guys and created great excitement."

Sports on 07/26/2014

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