Nick Starkel era underway at Arkansas

The Nick Starkel era is underway at Arkansas, and on Tuesday the Texas A&M graduate transfer took his first game week preparation reps as the Razorback starting quarterback.

Starkel entered the game at Ole Miss after halftime when the Hogs were down 10-3 at the break and finished 17 of 24 passing (70.8 percent) for 201 yards with a touchdown. Starkel got the ball out quickly and accurately and displayed a laser of a right arm...though mental mistakes for him and with other players cost the Razorbacks one scoring opportunity after another. He had a message to head coach Chad Morris upon entering the game.

"Hey coach, let's get the ball out of my hands pretty quickly," Starkel said following Tuesday's practice. "I want to get some passes in there, get the guys the ball and let them do something with it. We did that and it opened up the box. [Rakeem Boyd] had a couple of good runs in there. That's kinda what this offense can do when it really starts rolling."Starkel replaced senior Ben Hicks, an SMU graduate transfer who is highly familiar with the offense but has struggled so far this season. The Ole Miss defense didn't show respect for the Arkansas passing game and loaded the box on him. He also came off a bit gun shy and missed some key throws. Hicks finished 7 of 16 passing (43.8 percent) for 98 yards and was sacked twice.

"It wasn’t so much what Ben did or didn’t do. It’s what Nick did. We were looking for a spark, something to get our offense moving, create some momentum, create some yards, give an opportunity for some big plays. That was our decision going into it and Nick will be our starter," Morris said. "I thought the ball came out of his hand quick, which helped the pass protection up front. We did let him get hit after the ball was released too much. We have to keep him clean, especially in the fourth quarter. There was the one sack that he did not have a chance to get the ball out and throw it away. The one thing I did see, the ball came out of his hand quick. I thought, at that point, you kind of saw Ole Miss back off a little bit and give us some underneath stuff and loosen some things up."

Starkel's numbers don't include a 38-yard touchdown pass to freshman receiver Trey Knox that because the play was called back due to an ineligible receiver downfield on Grayson Gunter. That was actually the fault of freshman Treylon Burks being on the line instead of backed off of it. The advantage former starter Ben Hicks had was more knowledge of the offense, and that might have been a situation where he would have brushed Burks back. It was actually an illegal formation in the first place with eight men on the line of scrimmage.

Another play that really cost Arkansas was a trick play designed to go to the right to Treylon Burksbehind the line of scrimmage so that he could throw deep to what was a wide-open Cheyenne O'Grady streaking downfield. But Starkel not only mixed up the protection but threw a forward pass to Mike Woods to the right side of the field. A confused Woods ran backwards 15 yards for a 14-yard loss on the play.

"I take full responsibility for that," Starkel said. "I didn't know the play that well. I called the protection wrong. [Devwah Whaley] started to go the right way, and I sent him the wrong way. And he listened to the quarterback. He did a great job on that even though he knew I was wrong. I wish he had told I was wrong, but everything is on me. I throw it to the wrong guy and it was a forward pass. I'm glad he [Woods] didn't throw it, but it's still on me.

"I’ve had coaches in the past tell me that one play can change a game but you don’t know which play that’s going to be. Just like that. We didn’t know that those four or five, six, seven in your case that you’d say, plays would really affect the game like that, but they do. Every play matters. That’s the slogan of our team: Every. And hearing coach Morris say that and then going out and playing a game like that and if we had you know just three of those plays the score is completely different. That’s something that, you know that’s the game of football. And we understand that and we’ve got to capitalize. We’ve got to execute."

Going through a full week as the Arkansas starting quarterback will give Starkel a better understanding of the game plan and allow him to have input on it. He was essentially executing the game plan that Hicks was most comfortable with last Saturday. Every quarterback prepares as if they're the starter, ideally, but there is a difference in watching another QB execute a trick play while the backup takes mental notes.

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"Obviously there's a guy running with the ones and that's probably who is going to start, but it's really the same preparation for me," Starkel said. "I have a little more say in the game plan. That's really big for me. It's everything I 100 percent know, and I know the receivers know 100 percent, as well. If you know something 100 percent. you will be playing really fast rather than second guessing yourself, 'Do I do this or do that?' That's what we're really look for this week, just really playing fast."

Starkel's first start will come on Saturday at 3 p.m. from Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium as the Hogs seek revenge for last year's 34-27 collapse against Colorado State in Fort Collins.