By Nate Allen
Special to the News-Times
FAYETTEVILLE - Even clocking 100 miles per hour, a starting pitcher with just a one-speed fastball and nothing else isn’t apt to last long in major league baseball or even college baseball.
Same thing in football, Arkansas coach Chad Morris obviously believes, regarding the hurry-up, no-huddle offense he’s brought to the Razorbacks.
Morris spent spring drills constantly accelerating the Razorbacks between plays pace, but says that won’t necessarily be the constant case when the games start counting on Sept. 1 against Eastern Illinois.
“Tempo at times is a buzzword that's used to think you just go fast the whole time,” Morris said during Arkansas’ portion Tuesday of the four-day SEC Media Days that conclude today in Atlanta.
“Truly tempo is the ability to change the pace of the game. Go fast. Huddle up a little bit. Maybe break a huddle fast. Maybe go slow. Check the sideline. That's the ability to change the tempo of the game.”
That ability to change tempo, can bother opposing defensive coordinators just like a batter is bothered by a pitcher changing speeds.
“Talking to defensive coordinators, they would much rather you play one speed, whether it's all fast or slow or huddle, play that same speed the whole game,” Morris said.
“You work in their favor, but your ability to change the tempo causes people problems. And that's who we're going to be. We'll continue to evolve with the personnel that we have. Again being a high school coach (for 16 years in Texas), you have to do that, and you know, we'll continue to play to our players' strengths.”
Sometimes it’s your own defensive coordinator wishing to slow his own team’s offensive pace when your offense’s three-and-outs mount with scant time off the clock before the coordinator’s defense is put back on the field yet again.
“Yeah, I do,” Morris said last spring of acknowledging there are times he must defer his offensive pace to suit his defense. “I think that’s part as we get into the season and we figure out.
“Obviously, if you are going three and four three-and-outs in a row it is not the answer when you are burning only 45 seconds off the clock. So I think on those things, you’ve got to do a really good job of working together.”
He sees all that meshing with John “Chief” Chavis, the longest tenured defensive coordinator in the SEC (since 1995 at Tennessee, LSU, Texas A&M and now Arkansas).
“Defensively, when I got the job, I had one phone call that I made, and it was to John Chavis,” Morris said Tuesday in Atlanta.
“Having played against Chief, matter of fact here in Atlanta, in a bowl game, (Morris coordinated Clemson’s offense while Chavis coordinated LSU’s defense during Clemson’s 25-24 2012 Peach Bowl victory) knowing that the difficulty and preparing for his style of defense excited me.
“I want to be multiple. I want to be aggressive. And I want to put pressure, and I want to disrupt the quarterback. And that was what I was looking for and coach Chavis came to mind right off.”