After the Razorbacks surrendered an SEC-worst 6.75 yards per play last season, head coach Bret Bielema is making a change.

Gone is old defensive coordinator Robb Smith and in his place is the promoted Paul Rhoads. Rhoads knowledge of the 3-4 defense certainly helped his case, as Bielema needs help transitioning from a more traditional 4-3 defense.

These numbers within the defensive scheme refer to the number of players on each level. The 4-3 is a more classic formation with four down linemen and three linebackers. The 3-4, which has gained momentum lately, rolls an extra linebacker down near the line of scrimmage as a pass rush specialist who has the versatility to cover in certain situations.

The 3-4 is a defense that Bielema himself once played in, though he says it has made many advancements and grown more flexible since then. During his introductory spring press conference Monday, in which the change was formally discussed, Bielema said they’ve been having fun coming up with creative names for the new scheme.

“We got real creative,” said Bielema, noting that the positions and their names have come a long way since he played. A new example of one of these 3-4 positions is Razor. He explained it as an outside linebacker that’s more of a hybrid LB/S. Another such position is Hog, which is an outside linebacker that’s more of a hybrid LB/DL. Due to the nature of the scheme, both will have to do the same things at times, but they’ll be different positions with different skillsets. Bielema also noted that inside linebackers will be more inside the box now.

The head ball coach at Arkansas says that no transition like that is easy.

“Whether it’s 3-4, 6-2, 5-2, any time you got something new there’s going to be things you gotta work through,” said Bielema, “there’s going to be those little road bumps.” Though he described the move as “a total transition,” he noted that the verbiage (what he called “Hoganeese”) will change, though some of the formations will look similar.

“We may align in a front that looks exactly like a front we used a year ago and we’ll call it something totally different,” said Bielema.

One of the advantages of the new scheme, according to Bielema, is that they can leave either the Hog or Razor on the field in addition to bringing in a nickel. Bielema mentioned that aforementioned learning curve will prevent them from working on nickel situations until week two since they still don’t have the base mastered yet.