It was great to see London Crawford out there. As many of you may remember, we didn’t quite know what to think about the freshman wideout during fall camp. His impressive physical tools and reportedly sharp summer workouts had us excited. But with a new injury seemingly every day in practice, I wondered if he would even see the field this year.
With two catches for 45 yards on Saturday, Crawford definitely made a nice debut. Something that wasn’t on the stat sheet, however, was the thing I was most impressed to see from him…a fantastic downfield block that laid out a Vanderbilt defender during a long Felix Jones run. That, young man, will get you more playing time.
And speaking of blocking by receivers, is the SEC telling their officials to keep an eye on Marcus Monk? Monk certainly lived up to high expectations with an impressive five catches for 124 yards and a touchdown. But after another questionable holding call against him that negated a short reverse run by Crawford, I’m beginning to wonder if he has some sort of perceived reputation with SEC officials. (And why is it that every time I see holding called on a Hogs receiver, I think about the totally BS holding call on George Wilson during the 2003 Auburn loss? Ugh.)
I’ll take “student body” at middle linebacker right now. Sure, I’m not too happy that the defensive line hasn’t played as well as expected this season. But to me, the play at linebacker is the biggest reason why we aren’t stopping the run.
And I believe we’ve already come to the point where we need to either start one of the freshman “Davis Boys” or hold open student body tryouts to fill the middle linebacker position. Seriously. Go grab another “John Rutledge kind of guy” off the intermural fields. Or use someone currently at another position. (Peyton Hillis?) I mean…it’s not like we could give up many more rushing yards than we did yesterday.
It looks like a healthy Michael Smith is going to be a great weapon. I thought we used him perfectly yesterday as a second half “change of pace” guy. You could see him put the defense on their heels for several plays.
While others have compared him to Fred Talley, Smith reminds me of former Hogs running back Michael Jenkins. Both are shifty and can run by you before you even know they’re there. (Seeing Jenkins game-breaking run in person at the 2000 Cotton Bowl is still one of my favorite moments as a Razorback fan.)
I really like Smith too. He is exciting to watch. He runs with a purpose and he is not afraid to run over people.
Impressive!!!!
PH to line backer???? I guess I'd rather see him there than in the back field. I know, you guys think I'm overly critical of of "fumble-fingered" friend and granted he did catch the ball after it bounced off of his helmet against Utah State, but I just don't think he is fast enough to run against real SEC defenders (which we have not seen yet). He might be a good addition to our "strong" LB corps. Sure, give it a go HDN, you love playing guys in different positions.
GO FOR IT, BABY!!!!