FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas' football assistant coaches were a lot happier with Saturday's 100-play scrimmage than they were with Monday's rebound practice.
Offensive coordinator Dan Enos described Monday as "very sloppy" on the heels of major movement by the Razorbacks' four quarterbacks last week.
"It was good to see all four quarterbacks, all the things we asked them to work on, you could see them do it," Enos said. "That was really neat. That's what I shared with them today watching [the scrimmage], was I thought we got better at quarterback.
"And then individually offensively you saw different guys take steps in the right direction, which was very encouraging."
Defensive backs coach Paul Rhoads pointed out the circumstances that made Monday a rough start to the week.
"This was a Monday coming out of a first 100-plus snap practice and scrimmage," Rhoads said. "And we had an hour and a half meeting to start it. I think it's a great gauge for the mental toughness of our football team.
"Can you come out on a day like that and handle the mental part, handle the adjustment fixes that just took place, and sometimes in a very critical way, and go out on the practice field and work?"
Tight ends coach Barry Lunney Jr. pointed out some of the good work from his group Saturday, but stressed that the consistency is a problem.
"Overall, it wasn't near good enough on a play-in, play-out basis for us to win an SEC game," Lunney said. "There's a lot of things we've got to get better at."
Junior quarterback Austin Allen completed 14 of 18 passes for 200 yards and 3 touchdowns Saturday, with all the scores coming in red zone work. Enos said Allen did a good job extending plays and converting third downs.
"I thought Austin Allen had his best day Saturday," Enos said. "I thought he made plays with his arm. And he made plays with his feet as far as extending plays and making very accurate throws on the run.
"He made some plays on third down with people hanging around him in the pocket. I thought he performed extremely well, did some really good things."
Enos said sophomore quarterback Rafe Peavey had one bad play -- a forced-pass interception by linebacker Dwayne Eugene over the middle -- but he bounced back to throw a touchdown pass.. Enos said he was encouraged by redshirt freshman Ty Storey's third-down work and by his direction of the first offense on a touchdown drive.
"Ty is very bright, throws the ball on time and he knows where to go with the ball," he said.
Peavey completed 6 of 11 passes for 130 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown to Cody Hollister. Storey was 6 of 10 for 94 yards, including a 16-yard touchdown to Dominique Reed.
Defensive coordinator Robb Smith, who said he wasn't as irked about Monday's workout as Enos, called Saturday's scrimmage a solid building block.
"The biggest thing was I thought we tackled better than we had the week before, which was a big emphasis this past week," Smith said. "That's always got to continue to be an emphasis for us."
Receivers coach Michael Smith pointed out the work of Hollister, who worked with the starters Monday after catching a scrimmage-high five passes for 94 yards Saturday.
"There's not a guy in our group right now ... that has practiced as hard as Cody," Smith said.
As a unit, the receivers did not grade as highly as they should have, Smith added.
"I thought there were some contested catches that we should have made," he said. "I think we had six total drops on the day, and that was with a lot of my young guys."
Robb Smith said linebacker Brooks Ellis and end Deatrich Wise are both having strong springs. He praised the work of linebacker Khalia Hackett and safeties Josh Liddell and De'Andre Coley among others.
"I thought Josh Liddell made a lot of improvement this past week," he said. "He came up and made some tackles supporting the run, which is important for us."
Smith and linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves determined Hackett had his best scrimmage as a Razorback on Saturday.
"Hackett is playing probably as good as he's played since I've been here," Hargreaves said. "He's been really doing some good things."
Sports on 04/12/2016