Arkansas football has been in a steady decline the last several years. The Razorbacks peaked with eight wins under Bret Bielema in 2015, but then, they went 7-6 in 2016 and bottomed out at 4-8 last year. That led to a coaching change and the hiring of Chad Morris.

Under Morris, it hasn’t been any better during his first season. Arkansas has yet to win a conference game and sits at 2-7 heading into Week 11.

But when speaking to ESPN personality Paul Finebaum on Friday afternoon, Morris was pretty insistent that his team is getting better, saying “we’ve seen growth” in 2018.

“We knew we were in a rebuild, and we knew it was going to take a group of guys coming together and pulling their weight this year,” Morris said to Finebaum. “And we’ve seen that. We’ve seen growth in this program this year.”

Arkansas did shut out Tulsa three weeks ago to snap a six-game losing streak, but in what will probably prove as their best chance to win an SEC game, the Razorbacks fell at home to Vanderbilt, 45-31, the following week. Morris wasn’t pleased with that result, but he still argued Friday that in most games, Arkansas plays better than they did the previous week.

“I didn’t think we played very well against Vanderbilt, but leading up to that game, we had played extremely well, and had gotten better every week.”

Coming off its bye, Arkansas closes out the season at home against No. 7 LSU and travels to face No. 16 Mississippi State and Missouri.