Choice clear depending on circumstances presented Monday
In a couple of days Arkansas coach Sam Pittman will have to for sure pick a direction and stick with it. Whether he makes the right call will likely determine the rest of the season.
Pittman indicated earlier this week Taylen Green is fighting through a bone bruise. For those who are unfamiliar with this injury, it’s technically considered a traumatic injury that requires extreme rest.
It’s considered less severe than a bone fracture, but can be more painful in the long term than an actual break at times. Blood and fluid build up in and around the injured area of the bone, causing pain and swelling.
It’s a get off it and stay off it until it’s healed kind of injury. Depending on the grade, it could be a couple of weeks to several weeks recovery time.
If Green isn’t 100% by Monday, which is highly unlikely, the best move for the overall good of the season is to give him the rest of the week off and allow him to be a mentor to Singleton while getting film work on Mississippi State on the side. Singleton needs every snap he can get in practice to build chemistry with his center and receivers.
As for Green, a big part of his effectiveness is his ability to run. That’s not something he is going to be able to do until he is fully healed.
Because he’s now in the SEC instead of the Mountain West, the effectiveness of his running ability has a much smaller margin of error. The speed of defenders at this level make it difficult even for Green to avoid being tackled for losses.
When fully healthy, he can narrowly evade defenders and try to create a play the majority of the time but if he is slowed by as little as a tenth of a second, several of those wow plays he has made turn into big losses that can turn the tide against the Razorbacks.
That means offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino would have to turn Green into a pocket passer. That’s not his strong suit.
He is at his best when he is on the move. When left to stand in the pocket, Green gets anxious to bail out early and often has too much time to think, resulting in him aiming the ball, which greatly reduces his accuracy.
Mix in that a bone bruise that isn’t fully healed will make it difficult to properly step into a throw, which is already an issue Green has shown at times that has led to passes sailing high, and accuracy problems go up even more. Between the two, Singleton is the better true pocket passer.
Also, while a bit shorter and lacking Green’s deceptive long stride, Singleton can still run the ball pretty well. Tennessee may have allowed him to take it into the end zone at the end of that game-winning play, but he still showed quickness and speed that is going to cause defenses problems.
The optimum situation is obviously Green coming off two weeks of film work and a full week of running plays in practice at full speed. However, that’s unlikely to be the case.
If it’s a hampered Green versus playing Singleton at full speed with two weeks to get ready, the latter is clearly the better option. No need in turning this into a nagging injury situation.
It’s possible to get a pair of wins over the next couple of weeks by trusting Singleton to carry the load with Green coming back in time to face the cowbells in Starkville. However, if he plays Saturday in a limited capacity, not only does it increase the chances Arkansas loses to a ranked LSU team at home, but sets up one of the only scenarios in which there should be a chance for the Hogs to drop one on the road to Mississippi State.
Patience can pay off big time. Panic, however, can kill progress quickly.
It will be up to Pittman to make the ultimate call. How it plays out, good or bad, rests soully on him.