Razorback Report: Preparing for Auburn; Talking to AJ Derby

 

FAYETTEVILLE – The University of Arkansas football team continued spring practice on Tuesday afternoon in preparation for the 2014 season. Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Jim Chaney was available to the media after practice and spoke about the team’s scrimmage last Saturday.

AJ Derby, the former backup quarterback for the Razorbacks who recently made a move to tight end, said he is adjusting to his new position and said it is going well for him.

“Playing quarterback and and understanding the offense, it’s been an easy transition,” he said.

When asked what his expectations for the 2014 season are, he said, “I think the Razorbacks have a turnaround year, and I’m excited to see it happen.”

“I thought there were some good things,” Chaney said. “We protected the quarterback better than we did the first scrimmage. I don’t think we ran the ball the way we should have. We weren’t as explosive, but we were better on third down than we were the first scrimmage, so there’s some good and some bad. At the end of the day we’re about 50/50 on winning the plays and losing the plays. A lot of our losses are from mental mistakes that we have to clean up and continue to develop. It’s been interesting as we watch the tape trying to correct the mistakes. They got out and seem to be pretty driven to correct those mistakes the next practice. Today, we tried to correct some things that we messed up on on Saturday and they seemed pretty focused on that. I admire the qualities of this team in that regard.”

Chaney also spoke about preparing for the 2014 season opener against Auburn.

“We got a little Auburn work in today,” he said. “We probably didn’t do it at the rate we needed to, but we will look at it some tomorrow and see if see if we can get some stuff adjusted in that regard. We are trying to work on it a little bit though, as we keep pushing through. Most of the installations are done so we aren’t adding a lot of new offense.  It’s time to start thinking a little bit about the future.”

Bret Bielema adjusted the schedule for Wednesday’s practices to allow assistant coaches “to hit the road” recruiting.

razorback report prepping for auburn visiting with aj derby

 

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