Sam Pittman likes what Rodney Hill brings to backfield

FAYETTEVILLE — Running back Rodney Hill made his Razorback debut on Thursday night in a 70-0 win over UAPB.

Hill rushed four times for 15 yards and one touchdown. He also caught two passes for 16 yards. He’s battling Rashod Dubinion, the only returning scholarship running back from last season, for the spot behind Ja’Quinden Jackson. Sam Pittman was asked on Monday if Dubinion has a chance to move up the depth chart when fully healthy?

“Well, he has the opportunity to,” Pittman said. “You know, I really like Rodney Hill as our two running back, right now. R-Dub will certainly have an opportunity to continue to move up the chart when he gets healthy.”

In the win over UAPB, Arkansas rushed 33 times for 279 yards and eight touchdowns. Pittman gave his thoughts on the overall running game.

“Yeah, I think we blocked, the one thing I thought, we didn’t have many mistakes,” Pittman said. “Assignment mistakes. Once we can do that, and I think it goes back to what I want to say about Oklahoma State. You’re going to have to beat them, because they’ve got a lot of starters coming back. They’re not going to make mistakes. They’re not. They’re going to play sound football, hard and physical. To win, your going to have to physically go out and try to be more physical than they are because they’re a well, well-coached football team. I thought we looked that way as far as Thursday night. I thought we looked like a well-coached football team, and we had limited mistakes. Therefore, we can play pretty good up front if we do that.”

A lot of the running success against Oklahoma State will hinge on the offensive line. The unit blocked well against an out-manned UAPB defensive line. Pittman knows this unit will be tested on Saturday.

“There was four of the five out there on the field that played Thursday night that didn’t play for us last year, so I don’t know,” Pittman said. “It’s not the same O-Line, even the same personnel, to be honest with you. The game Thursday, there’s really not a lot you can put into the results of that because, no disrespect, we’re not going to play anybody like that the rest of the year. The only thing we can do is, did we play hard? Did we play smart? Did we play physical? Did we want to score every time? Did we want to shut them out? That’s the result you got from it.

“The smart part of it, did we have a lot of MA’s (missed assignments), we did not up front. We didn’t have really pressure problems, but they didn’t pressure us either. We’re going to get pressured Saturday, there is no doubt in my mind. They’re going to see if we can protect, but for what the game was, I thought we played smart, we played physical. That’s the expectation when we go into Stillwater. I like our line, we haven’t been tested. We’ll find out a lot more about them on Saturday.”

Arkansas and Oklahoma State will kickoff at 11 a.m. on Saturday and televised on ABC.