Petrino wants defense to be 'dominant' in opener, beyond

Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino spoke for about 30 minutes this afternoon at the first ever Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club luncheon. He hit on several items, most of which are generic things we’ve heard throughout camp. But here are a few tid-bits that caught my ear.

I’ll have video from the event later tonight.

— Petrino talked plenty, as he has all preseason, about the defense. Arkansas is striving to stop giving up the big plays, and the main goal for the first two games is to be “dominant” on defense.

What does that entail? Well, Petrino’s goal in the early games this season is to keep opposing offenses at an 80-percent failure rate on third down.

— The battle at center between Seth Oxner and Travis Swanson could get interesting this week. Center was one of eight positions without a starter on the depth chart released Friday before Arkansas’ mock game.

Oxner was “dinged up” in the scrimmage Friday and didn’t finish the entire mock game. Petrino expects him to be OK for the game Saturday, though.

— Junior receiver Joe Adams returned a punt for a touchdown in Arkansas’ closed mock game Friday, but Petrino threw a penalty flag on the play and backed the Arkansas offense to its own 1-yard line. But it apparently wasn’t a problem for running back Broderick Green who, despite a lack of blocking by the offensive line, shed three tackles and sprinted his way toward a 99-yard touchdown on the first play after the penalty.

“Ryan Mallett came over to me and I said, ‘Why don’t we run the same play we ran last year for a 99-yard touchdown?’” Petrino said, referring to Green’s record run against Eastern Michigan. “Mallett kind of smiled at me, because I knew he wanted to throw the ball. But we called the same play. … The only difference this year was, we didn’t block anybody. They angled the front on us and both our guards missed, Broderick got hit at about the minus-1, broke two tackles there, broke another one at about the 9 and took it 99 yards for a touchdown.

It’s a play we like a lot now.”

Laughter enveloped the room.

“We call it our coming-out-offense,” Petrino added.

— Petrino, at least half-jokingly, blamed his thinning and gray hair on his first season at Arkansas when he played 16 true freshmen and finished 5-7.

“I still remember we broke the huddle a number of times that first year and we’ve got four true freshmen wide receivers. Man, sometimes they didn’t know which way they were coming out of the huddle — let alone what they were supposed to do,” Petrino said.

The coach usually wears a hat during games and practices, but does shed the headgear for Arkansas’ annual game inside Cowboys Stadium against Texas A&M.

After last year’s game, Petrino received a phone call — and a reminder of his first season at Arkansas.

“My daughter calls me on the phone and says, ‘Hey, dad, you look bald,’” Petrino said.

— Speaking of true freshmen, Petrino expects to play six to nine true freshmen this season. Petrino said last week he plans to play Byran Jones and Chris Smith, both true freshmen on the defensive line.

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— Brandon Marcello