Countdown to Kickoff – Week 12

Razorbacks hope returnees yield successful campaign

For the past decade, the Arkansas football team has made a living upsetting highly-ranked opponents and feasting on less talented competition.

But with a slew of returnees from an 8-5 squad in 2009, Razorback faithful hope their team can move from the hunters to the hunted this season and claim the school’s first-ever Southeastern Conference Championship.

“The expectations are something I have put right out in front of the team, and I have told them it was great to have such high expectations,” Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino said. “The excitement is good. It was a good motivating factor for the summer.”

With 16 starters returning, Arkansas returns a good portion of last season’s team that struck fire and won five of their final six games to close the season.

But one returnee stands above them all in Fayetteville – junior quarterback Ryan Mallett.

The 6-foot-6-inch, 240-pound signal caller baffled SEC defenses last season and completed 225-of-403 passes for 3,624 yards and 30 touchdowns and just seven interceptions in his first season on the field since transferring from Michigan.

That dominant statistical season has made Mallett a candidate for virtually every preseason college football award, including the Heisman Trophy.

Mallett said getting a college degree while trying to take Arkansas to the next level is why he returned the school and shunned the NFL, even though some people said he might have been the first pick in the 2010 NFL Draft.

“First and foremost, I promised my momma I would graduate, so I’m going to try and do that this year,” Mallett said at SEC Media Day. “Secondly, I felt like I owed it to the state. They accepted me when I transferred from Michigan, so just playing 1 year and leaving – I just didn’t find that ethically right to do.”

While Mallett’s success in 2010 is close to a sure thing, the Razorbacks’ defensive unit is a lot more questionable.

Arkansas allowed 25 points per game last year. In SEC games, that number jumped to just below 30 points per game.

But the Razorbacks will be an experienced team on that side of the football thanks to seven returning starters.

Improving on that side of the football is what Mallett said will be a huge factor in the team’s hopes of making it to a Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowl this year.

“It’s a growing process. They’ve got another year in the system,” the quarterback said. “We’ve got some really great players over there, and they’ve had some maturation, so that’s why they’re going to be better.”

In spring practices, the Razorbacks’ defense made a small step toward making that hope a reality by limiting Mallett and the other Arkansas passers to just 25-of-48 passing.

“We struggled to complete some passes,” Petrino told the team’s website following the spring game. “Part of that was the pass rush and the other part was that guys were out of rhythm at times.”

It shouldn’t take long to find out whether the Razorbacks are ready to take the next leap in the SEC.

Arkansas opens the conference slate with a road game against Georgia, then a home game with defending national champion Alabama.

Both the Bulldogs and the Crimson Tide beat the Razorbacks last year – by a combined score of 87-48.

But this time around, Mallett sees the picture being a little more favorable for the Razorbacks, who were just seconds away from beating LSU on the road last season and winning six-straight games to close 2009.

“It’s the SEC – it’s a wide open conference. Anything can happen from week to week,” Mallett said. “That’s why we came to the SEC to play – we want to play against the best competition in the nation.”

ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS

2009 Record: 8-5

Starters Returning: 16

Key Returners: Quarterback Ryan Mallett, tight end D.J. Williams, wide receiver Greg Childs, offensive tackle DeMarcus Love

2009 STATS

Scoring Offense: 36.0 points per game

Scoring Defense: 25.1 points allowed per game

Total Offense: 427.3 yards per game

Total Defense: 401.2 yards allowed per game

1st pick Bradford to lead Rams into 2010

After going 1-15 in 2009, the St. Louis Rams will have to settle for small victories in 2010.

The most important of which will be the development of No. 1 overall pick Sam Bradford.

And the former Heisman trophy winner will have his work cut out for him, joining an offense that ranked 28th in passing yards a year ago.

Bradford will likely begin the season as the starter, and he saw his first NFL action in Saturday’s preseason tilt against the Minnesota Vikings.

The Rams lost 28-7, but Bradford threw and completed more passes than any other St. Louis quarterback, going 6-for-13 for 57 yards.

The speed of the game may be beginning to slow down for the rookie after he told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen his head was spinning during the first week of practice.

“I was thinking a lot on the football field, which is not good at the quarterback position. But it seemed like after those first four or five days, everything just slowed down a little bit,” Bradford said. “I was able to go out there and play football and that’s when I became much more comfortable in the pocket and much more comfortable making reads, and that’s when it felt good to go out there and play football like that again.”

Bradford said his biggest surprise upon entering the NFL was the number of things that a quarterback has to comprehend.

Even though the former Oklahoma Sooner standout is surrounded by arguably the worst supporting cast in the NFL, Bradford can take solace in the fact even that All Pro, Super Bowl Champion quarterbacks struggled mightily in their rookie year.

He said he has spoken to Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning since being drafted, and each gave words of wisdom from experience after a combined 34 interceptions and four wins in their rookie campaigns.

They both didn’t have tremendous amounts of success in their rookie year but they said they learned a lot during their rookie season and they really think it benefited them in the long run.

Bradford’s best friend will be his mate in the backfield, running back Steven Jackson, who still managed to rattle off more than 1,400 rushing yards during the Rams anemic 2009 season.

At receiver, Bradford will have a limited number of targets to throw the ball to. Donnie Avery, Keenan Burton and Danny Amendola return and the Rams welcome fourth-round pick out of Cincinatti Mardy Gilyard to a team that only had eight receiving touchdowns a year ago.

Bradford can hope his saving grace in 2010 will be protection with former second-overall selection Jason Smith of Baylor at tackle.

Fellow first round pick and the previous starter at left tackle Alex Barron was shipped to the Cowboys in exchange for linebacker Bobby Carpenter.

The Rams hope that Carpenter can improve upon a defense that didn’t have much to hang its hat on last year ranking 25th against the pass and 27th against the run.

Last year’s rookie linebacker James Laurinaitis led the team with 120 tackles, followed by safety Oshiomogoho Atogwe with 74.

During the offseason, the Rams brought in veteran linebacker Na’il Diggs from the Panthers as well as cornerback Kevin Dockery from the Giants.

Regardless of how the defense does this season, realistically this will be another rebuilding year for the Rams.

And with nowhere to go but up after three consecutive years with a top two draft selection, Ram faithful finally have something to look forward to in the form of Bradford.

ST. LOUIS RAMS

2009 Record: 1-15

Starters Returning: 13

Key Returners: Running back Steven Jackson, tackle Jason Smith, linebacker James Laurinaitis, safety Oshiomogho Atogwe

2009 STATS

Scoring Offense: 10.9 ppg

Scoring Defense: 27.25 papg

Total Offense: 279.4 ypg

Total Defense: 372.9 yapg