Arkansas has found its offensive headliner in Chris Marshall, and that’s changing the way defenses are going to treat the Razorbacks moving forward.
Through four games, the fifth-year wideout has put himself among the SEC’s best. Marshall, listed at 6-3 and 213 pounds, has 28 catches for 473 yards, a 16.9-yard average, and he leads the SEC in both receptions and receiving yards.
He’s also sixth nationally in receiving yards. That kind of production doesn’t stay quiet for long, and Arkansas has already seen signs that opponents are starting to tilt attention his way, with Tulsa beginning to do that late in last week’s game.
That extra attention should create room somewhere else in the passing game. The question is who takes advantage of it.
“Everybody can do it. We all can make plays.
We're all good receivers. Somebody is going to step up,” Arkansas wide receiver CJ Brown said on Wednesday.
“He's just been balling the past couple of games, so things are going to open up because he's going to start getting bracket coverage I'm sure. Teams aren't going to just let him be one-on-one and go for 200 yards every game.”
The problem for Arkansas is that the gap between Marshall and everyone else has been wide. No other Razorbacks receiver has reached 100 receiving yards this season, and senior Ismael Cisse is second on the team with only 90.
Out of 60 completions Arkansas quarterback Jackson has thrown to wide receivers, Marshall has accounted for 28 of them. Cisse has seven catches.
Sophomore running back Cam Settles and senior tight end Ty Lockwood are tied for second on the team with 10 receptions apiece.
That’s why the next few weeks matter. Arkansas is heading into an eight-game SEC stretch that starts Saturday at Texas A&M at 6 p.m. CDT on ESPN2, and the Hogs need a reliable second option to emerge alongside Marshall.
Offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey said Arkansas has already been working to move Marshall around and create chances elsewhere. The staff has tried to set up different looks, get him into motion and prevent defenses from simply lining up and tracking him.
“We're moving guys around, setting guys up,” Cramsey said. “We got to [senior tight end Jaden Platt ] for a couple catches last week off of it.
We're going to continue trying to feed him the ball. Until people completely take it away, our plan is where can we move him, how can we put him in different places?
You saw that a little bit last week.
“How can we motion him around? How can we not allow defenses just to see where he is and find out where he's going to be?
But we do need guys to step up. My assumption is at some point, they're going to do a unique way of covering him and force other guys to make plays.
I believe in those guys, I have faith in those guys. When we threw them the ball, they did catch it.
“So we've got to continue to have it. Platt had a couple good catches last week.
[Sophomore running back Cam Settles ] came out of the backfield with six or seven catches last week. That stuff has to happen if they're going to mess with coverages there.
If they have two guys on someone, they've got to be weak somewhere.”
The coaches were convinced back in fall camp that Arkansas had “about eight or nine” receivers they could trust as starters. So far, though, only Marshall has truly separated himself.
Head coach Ryan Silverfield said the upcoming stretch will likely tell Arkansas more about how teams plan to defend its top receiver, whether that means extra help over the top or a best-corner, man-to-man approach.
“Teams are going to start rolling some coverages and doing some different things,” Silverfield said. “That's part of what we're going to start seeing is are team's going to try to put their best corner on him and play man-to-man?
Are they going to start rolling things that way? We'll see.
To be determined. But we've got to be great with it.
“We've got to have other guys step up. We've got great faith in all the other wide receivers.
We need the tight ends to continue to do things. You saw in the previous game Ty Lockwood did some really good things.
This game, Platt did some really good things. But we need a variety of different guys.
We threw some check downs.
“We've got to continue to find the running backs. So finding different answers with that. We know how special Chris is, and guess what, even if they roll coverage to him or put the best corner on him, we need to go out there and make plays.”
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