Arkansas has yet to name the program’s captains for the upcoming, and according to head coach Chad Morris, those names won’t be coming anytime soon.
During his latest media availability, Morris was asked if the Razorbacks have named any team captains yet — and if not, what his strategy would be for doing so moving forward. While Morris has yet to hand out those honors following spring practice and the start of fall camp, the Arkansas coach does have a “leadership committee” in place and a strategy for naming the program’s captains.
Here’s how Morris outlined that strategy for the Fayetteville media, naming three defenders (defensive back, linebacker, defensive line were all represented) as well as one offensive player.
“We’ve got a leadership committee. Santos Ramirez, Dre Greenlaw, Sosa (Agim), Hjalte (Froholdt). Those are guys that are part of our leadership committee, that are considered our leaders right now,” Morris revealed.
Those players currently stand in as the “team captains,” but Morris isn’t willing to bestow the honor to any player on a full-time basis at this point. Here’s how that process goes down under Morris.
“I usually don’t like to select true team captains until we get into the month of November. I want to see how they respond in August, September, and October,” Morris continued. “So what you’ll see is I’ll rotate captains out each week. There’ll be four different captains each week, try to start with my seniors, but I have a leadership committee.
“Then what I do for our team captains, which we will have somewhere in this building — I think it’s a big deal to be a captain our your team — we will have someplace on this wall or in these walls for our elected captains, and they will be selected by their peers. So we will come in and have a vote, our team, and it’s a team-only vote, and they’ll pick the captains of the football team that feel like has led us and will lead us thru the month of November because we want to have a November to remember and into the bowl game.”
In this system, Arkansas won’t have permanent captains until the final three games of the season. It’s an unusual move but one that will perhaps inspire the leadership council to step up and earn those titles or even encourage players outside of that council to step up and show they are the real leaders of the team. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this plays out for the Razorbacks in the first year under Morris.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
