Ron Roberts sat down in front of a microphone Tuesday and spent a good while talking about Auburn.
He covered the quarterback, the receivers and the run game, and he did it like a guy who’s seen this offense plenty of times.
Roberts never came out and said Arkansas doesn’t have the players to stop people. He didn’t really need to, because the longer he talked, the clearer that part got.
The Razorbacks are 3-5, and Roberts kept circling back to the same idea. His guys are working hard every day. There just aren’t many of them he can count on right now, and he knows it.
“We’re playing 14, maybe 15 kids,” he said.
Run the same 15 out there all game and somebody’s going to wear down or get beat. Most weeks it’s both.
The kids who are playing aren’t the problem. The problem is nobody’s behind them pushing for snaps the coaches have confidence in right now.
So that’s what the Hogs are packing for Auburn. Roberts has a defense that’s trying, and he isn’t pretending it’s something more than that.
The full press conference is in the video with this story.
Effort isn’t the issue
Roberts went out of his way to defend his players. He didn’t want anybody thinking a 3-5 record means the locker room has quit, because that’s not what he’s seeing.
He said Tuesday morning’s practice was one of the fastest and most physical they’ve had all season.
He said it didn’t look anything like what you’d expect from a team with a losing record, and he liked the looks both sides of the ball were giving each other.
“They’re flying around,” Roberts said.
It’s when he talked about who’s ready to play that you heard the real problem. The work is getting done. The number of guys he trusts just hasn’t grown the way he wanted.
“The number of players that I was hoping to get in the can-do category, it’s not there,” he said.
He didn’t put all of that on the players. He put some of it on the coaches, saying they “haven’t developed the players that I want.”
You don’t hear a lot of coordinators say that out loud with half a season left. Most would talk around it.
Roberts just said it and moved on.
One good half, then Tennessee
There have been some good stretches this year, and Roberts was quick to point that out. He said the defense isn’t where he wants it, but it has had moments where it looked the way it’s supposed to.
The first half against Missouri was one of those. Roberts said the defense looked good there, even if there were still a few plays he’d like back.
Tennessee was a different deal. The fourth quarter got away from Arkansas, and Roberts didn’t sound sure why. He wouldn’t say his guys are getting worn out, but he didn’t offer another reason either.
With only 15 or so guys getting real snaps, you can do that math yourself.
The thing that bugs him most is a few big plays sprinkled into otherwise decent games. He said three snaps can go for more than 30 yards. Do that a couple of times and a game you were hanging around in is suddenly gone.
“That’s difference between being, you know, average and good and good and great,” he said.
Part of the fix is simply getting more players. Arkansas has “got to do better job in recruiting,” Roberts said.
The other part is on the staff. He said they’ve got to do a better job developing the guys already on campus, so the number he can trust climbs past 15.
Byron Brown is a handful
Auburn isn’t the opponent you’d pick when your defense is this thin. Roberts coached there once, so he’s heading back to a place he knows and remembers fondly.
He knows the offense, too. He said it traces back to Philip Montgomery and Art Briles, who built it together, and he figures he’s seen it 10 or 12 times over the years.
Auburn coach Alex Golesh also beat Roberts’ defense last year at South Florida in a low-scoring game that turned on a couple of penalties late.
Quarterback Byron Brown is what makes it all go. He’s Auburn’s leading rusher, and Roberts thinks he’s a lot better now than he was a year ago. He said he hasn’t seen Brown have any trouble adjusting to the SEC.
“He’s got a laser arm,” Roberts said. He said Brown can throw it 70 yards off his back foot.
Brown has been sacked 34 times this season. Roberts didn’t put much stock in that number, though. He said Brown keeps his eyes downfield, reads coverage well and doesn’t panic when the rush gets close.
Where he really hurts a defense is when he slips out of the pocket through the B gaps. Once he’s loose in space, he’s a load for anybody trying to bring him down.
“He’s really dangerous, and he’s a problem in open field tackling,” Roberts said.
Nimrod and Cobb
Wide receiver Chaz Nimrod, who wears No. 5, came up next. He started the season playing inside before Auburn moved him back outside, where he lined up when Arkansas saw him last year.
“I hope he don’t show up,” Roberts said with a laugh.
He called Nimrod an explosive athlete. Leave him one-on-one on a deep ball and he’ll make you pay, so Roberts said there has to be help over the top or underneath.
Running back Cobb gets most of the carries out of the backfield. Roberts put him at about 205 pounds and said he’s a physical back who hits it downhill.
The line in front of him runs a lot of stretch and gap schemes, and Roberts said they do it well.
To slow Brown down, Roberts wants two defenders at the point of attack. If the Hogs can’t get two there, he called it “a huge concern.”
He’ll put his best 15 out there and hope they hold up.
Against an offense with this many weapons, that might be asking a lot of a group that’s already giving all it has.
