FAYETTEVILLE -- With admission, parking and pregame activities all free with the ongoing RazorFest, the Arkansas Razorbacks close the curtain on their spring football drills with today's annual Red-White intrasquad game.
Kickoff is 1 p.m. and will be televised by the SEC Network (Resort Channel 79, tape-delayed to 5 p.m.).
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema's format is "the ones against the world."
That translates to the first-team offense, with some second-team top alternates, against the the rest of the defense a cut more below the top and the first-team defense against an offense comprised of the tiers below the starters.
Bielema said the cohesiveness is better keeping the units intact as they practice rather than dividing the squad for the spring game, perhaps resulting in botched snaps of a starting quarterback working with an unfamiliar reserve center or vice-versa.
Since it's best against the rest, Bielema has altered the scoring system the better to keep the rest competitive.
The rest will wear road white and the best Arkansas' home red.
"The scoring will be a little bit different," Bielema said. "If the Red team scores, it's normal traditional American football. If the White team scores, it's worth double points. So a touchdown is worth 12. PATs are worth 2. Field goals are worth 6 and so on and so forth. The second half, because we're under a time constraint by the SEC Network, we'll kind of have to adjust that as needed. For the fans, it's going to be a great time."
Bielema said fans will see the Razorbacks in their SEC game apparel and the assistant coaches operate in their on-field or press locales as they will when the Razorbacks open their season Sept. 5 at Reynolds Razorback Stadium against Texas-El Paso.
Second-year defensive coordinator Robb Smith and first-year offensive coordinator Dan Enos will operate from the sideline.
The game marks the last spring chance to influence the summer depth chart, though that influence will be balanced by the 14 spring practices that preceded the Red-White finale.
"The summer depth chart is going to be based on the 15 practices, the body of work on the entire spring," Enos said.
Enos was asked what he looked for from his offensive players.
"I just want to see the guys in a game-like atmosphere and I want to continue to evaluate them," Enos said. "There's a lot of guys we're continuing to evaluate. As many times as you can put them in a game-like situation, that's good for us. That'll make us better."
Smith said the Red-White game evaluation began with the end of Thursday's practice through Friday's meetings right through the game.
"We are looking for great preparation on Thursday and Friday night and playing in front of a crowd and getting used to doing that again and competing against one another and simulating a football game as best we can," Smith said. "It's going to be the closest we can get to a real football game without playing an opponent. That's important to us."
Sports on 04/25/2015