Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema was pleased overall with his team’s 49-7 win over Florida A&M to open the 2017 football season on Thursday in Little Rock.

It was the Hogs’ third straight season-opening win.

The head coach addressed the Razorbacks’ slow start, while also giving an update on a key injury to defensive back Ryan Pulley.

Bielema was impressed with his stable of running backs.

“Yeah, I’ve been excited about those guys. Obviously Devwah [Whaley] is a guy that’s proven it already. David Williams, you can see has some athleticism. Chase Hayden has some skills and TJ Hammond missed some time, just started practicing, to get him in the mix was good.”

 

Bielema also was asked about QB Cole Kelley attempting to truck a defender.

“He’s a big boy. He’s 6-foot-7, 270-pounds of love. You can see people react, he’s got a magnetic personality. I think he completed two passes, both screen passes but he’ll brag about that one for some time. It was good to get him reps.”

Maybe the most interesting quote from Bielema… he’s 1-0 without a windbreaker.

Part of the reason for the slow start may have been because the Rattlers were playing a different quarterback than Arkansas expected.

“When we came into the game and the other quarterback came out, our defense had to make some adjustments and change their game plan a little bit based on what they saw offensively,” Bielema said.

Bielema is 11-1 in season openers.

Below is Bielema’s complete opening statement given in his post game press conference: 

“You always say hold your breath. It’s exciting to see the players that you’ve seen play in the past, and see the growth that they’ve made, and also see new guys step into roles. I thought today was kind of a little culmination of all that. I think when we came into the game we obviously had a plan in mind offensively and defensively.

“Special teams, when the other quarterback wasn’t playing, I think our defense made some adjustments, changed our game plan a little bit based on what they’ve seen offensively. We had so many new guys, we had a new lineup with Ty Clary in there. We had three running backs that really haven’t played a lot. Wide receiver, had a lot of new faces. And then obviously (senior center) Frank (Ragnow) and (senior quarterback) Austin (Allen) returning playing really good football. It was a little bit of everything.

“I think we had some speed bumps in that first half, which was good to overcome, get those out of our way. As coaches we always talk about getting improvement from game one to game two and we’re going to need that.

“I thought your guys responded really well the second half. We talked about starting fast, starting on kickoff coverage and then following it up with defense. And we had a good teaching moment because we got a sideline penalty. So this type of game, it was good to get a lot of real good visual learning. We’ll be able to take from the lm and teach other guys, and come out relatively healthy. I think (junior defensive back) Ryan Pulley, obviously hurt his shoulder, so we’ll have to wait to get back home to figure out exactly what that is. But other than that, came out pretty clean with everybody else.

“Our plan was to get this one out of our way. Most of the guys, the team will y back tonight. We’ll just need to rest tomorrow, watch lm. We’ll move into TCU preparation tomorrow night. We’ve already done a lot, in spring and summer and with fall camps. We’ll give players a day off on Saturday. They’ve earned it.

“They’ve had 13 straight days. I’ll give them a day off. We’ll watch TCU Saturday night, add that to the scouting reports on Sunday morning, and have a sign cant practice Sunday night, which is a two-day jump, more than what we do for any other games. This is going to bene t us for preparation our next week.”

Thoughts on Chase Hayden: 

“I kind of reserved saying anything about him. His level of competition in high school was a little bit different. As soon as he came to campus the ability that he has to learn, regurgitate the game and understand the way that we play here was quick. We could see right away, that he was going to have an impact and we were going to play him. I thought he was a little loose on the ball when he rst started repping. He can make a lot of things happen in a short amount of space. He’s dynamic. I think the combination of him, Devwah (Whaley) and David (Williams), who are three unique players at that position, will present a preparation nightmare.”