Voltar
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas (3-5, 1-4 SEC) will head to Auburn on Friday with a chance to get back on track after an embarrassing 34-10 home loss to Missouri.
The Razorbacks were without a critical playmaker in leading receiver Chris Marshall, who sustained a lower leg injury three weeks ago against Vanderbilt. After a bye week and participating in a few practices, Marshall ended up missing the Missouri game as a gametime decision.
He has been upgraded to "probable" this week, which is good news for an Arkansas offense that was stuck in reverse last week. The Razorbacks totaled only 288 yards of offense, four turnovers, committed seven penalites for 85 yards and allowed one sack.
"With a lower body injury, there's no telling," Silverfield said on Monday. "You can sit there, and I think a lot of times the guys are going to push and do everything they can, but at the wide receiver position, if a guy is 60%, it's really hard to get him to go.
"But I think a lot of these, which I appreciate about a guy like that, who loves football, is 'I want to do anything I can to be out there,' who's grateful for this opportunity as well, and sometimes I'm going to push, push, push. I just can't get to the gear I need to in order to be effective, and a player's got to listen to his body as well."
Another player who was missing in action last week was running back Braylen Russell, who received just one carry against Missouri. He was obviously slowed a bit as was seen from his single snap last Saturday.
"Braylen was not really able to practice full go much this week," Silverfield said. "He tried. He's a tough young man, and he said, 'Coach, I'm going to play in this game. Whatever I need to do to try to help this team.' Obviously, got the one carry and was ineffective. But to his credit, he's like, 'I want to play. Let me at least dress.' But yeah, obviously, he was not overly effective due to an injury."
Silverfield is hopeful his two of his more effective offensive weapons will be ready to roll when the Razorbacks make it to The Plains to face an Auburn team that's struggled to slow opposing rushing attacks.
"We’re truly hopeful that Chris and Braylen can go," Silverfield said. "But we won’t know until we go live again. Today is an off day but obviously they’re in there getting treatment on their bodies and we’ll know more as the week progresses.
"Auburn we know, like a lot of these teams, they’re going to try to pressure us and show some pressures and pips and pops with their inside backers. So we’ve got to be at the top of our game to get our run game going. It’s going to be a great challenge. But listen, I know Auburn is trying to improve in that area and so are we."
The Razorbacks also have concerns over two of its best pash rushers in Quincy Rhodes and Steven Soles, combining for 6.5 tackles and three sacks. With defensive cooridinator Ron Roberts concern about lack of depth, it would be a major issue not having either pass rusher available.
"At times, we haven't been real consistent," Roberts said. "(We) haven't developed the players that I want... the number of players that I was hoping to get into the "can do" category, it's not there. So, we're we're you know, we're playing 14 maybe 15 kids.
"I'm not saying they're getting worn out, but maybe... I don't know what's the thing is because you go back to whatever the Tennessee game, you know, gets to the fourth quarter, what's the mistakes, I mean, but no, I mean, I think our guys, what I do say is that it is our players are working really hard."
The Razorbacks are set to kickoff against the Tigers on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 11:45 a.m. CT inside Jordan Hare Stadium and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.