Media Days: ARKANSAS

Welcome to our first team of the day. They have a really nice stadium and the school was built on a hill.


ARKANSAS
The coach is Robert ("Bob" or "Bobby") Petrino.

• Get ready for excitement here. Always a gas, Petrino.
  
  
• On Ryan Mallett: "He's a young man who is a tremendous leader for us. Every week ... he makes two or three throws that make you say: Wow. Nobody else in the country could have made that throw."
  
  
• Their top four receivers are back, though all the back-up guys have graduated. So it'll be freshmen along the second team. That's interesting.
  
  
• Petrino notes that Mallett is something like former Louisville (and NFL) quarterback Brian Brohm. "Brian was really about timing. He doesn't have the arm strength Ryan has. Ryan is a little bit different in that he has the big, strong arm. We actually have to tone him down a little bit ... to tell him not to throw that fastball every time."
  
  
• On what they learned from losing close games last season: "We have to play well on the road. We made a huge step forward when we played at Florida. They don't have to do anything extraordinary; they just have to play Razorback football. We know that the majority of the games are going to come down to the fourth quarter."
  
  
• "I'm not saying we're going to be a ball-control team. What I do believe is: How well you run the ball in the third quarter and fourth quarter -- and how you defend the run in the third quarter and fourth quarter -- makes the difference in those close games."
  
  
• He supports legislation that prevents high-school players from receiving offers before their junior year ends. ``There has to be a lot of thought into it. Will it be a verbal offer or a written offer? A written offer comes out of our office. I can track that. I've never liked the early commitment part -- the way it's changed in the last 10 years."
  
  
• "I like high expectations. You want people to think you're going to be good. You want your players and coaches to be driven by that. I think it's a good thing. The one thing you can't do is shy away from it."
  
  
• On putting Mallett on the cover of Arkansas' media guide ... alone: "The one thing I wanted was for me to not be on the cover."
  
  
• On pimps agents: "It's a concern every single day for coaches. We try to educate our players ... what does an agent do? It's up to us to help them with it."
  
  
• On social media: "It's something we've spent a lot of time educating our players about not doing something stupid. Everybody on our team has to let (the director of football operations) be his friend. There have been times when we had to bring young men in to take something off his Facebook page. It's a new part of the world. I'm confident our players ... will do what's right."
  
  
• On having an off week after playing Alabama: "We messed that up, didn't we?"
  
  
• That's a wrap.
  
  
• BONUS Ryan Mallett says "I didn't want to leave after one season. I didn't think that was ethically right."
  
  
• BONUS Ryan Mallett says "I had an OK year last year."
  
  
• BONUS Ryan Mallett says "I'm obviously not a runner. I move around in the pocket."