Tommy Tuberville Previews Arkansas

"Arkansas is a very good football team. The Razorbacks are much improved each week, and well coached. I really enjoy this game, being from Arkansas, but Houston (Nutt) and I have been friends for a long time and it's always an excellent game. After you play this game each year, you look back and you can point out four or five plays that usually decided the game. It's always a fun game. It is hard fought and the players respect each other and get after it," said Tuberville.

"Last year was a tale of two halves. They won the first half and we won the second half. Fortunately, we scored a few more points than they did. This year, they have started a new quarterback for the last few weeks. They are much improved. They have one of the better running backs in the country. They are a very athletic football team. If you were to define this Arkansas football team, it would be by saying `very athletic' on both sides. They have a lot of good football players with a lot of speed, typical for an SEC football team. You can tell the improvement and how hard they are being coached over the last few weeks after the opening loss to USC.

"We have to, obviously, go against another team this week that is undefeated in the Western Division. It will be a big Western Division game. Our guys are excited about playing. It is good to be home in Jordan-Hare Stadium for the next few weeks. We took care of business on the road, as you have to do if you want a chance to get to Atlanta. It wasn't pretty, but sometimes you have to win like that. Now, we are back home and trying to improve and get better each week as a team."

On Arkansas defensive coordinator Reggie Herring...
"Reggie is a friend of a lot of coaches on the staff. He worked with Hugh Nall and coach Kevin Yoxall. Reggie is one of the throwback coaches and is hard-nosed. He believes in technique football. He believes in speed. Our philosophies are very, very similar on both sides. Arkansas is probably as close to our coaching staff, I guess, in the league -- if we were looking at another team on offense, defense and the kicking game -- the philosophy would be as close as anyone's. Reggie has coached here. I have known him for a long time. He is one of the hard-nosed coaches who loves to get his defense ready to play. Obviously for us, we are going to have to gear up because last year we had a few yards on them rushing the football. He is not going to let that happen again. We have our work cut out for us. You can tell that his philosophy and his personality rubs off on their defense. They fly to the football. You'll get hit harder in this game than any game we'll get hit all year long by a defensive team. You can expect that and our guys understand it. They have been there and have played against this defense before."

On Arkansas and the big picture in the Western Division...
"You take them all in perspective and look at it. I know a lot of people look at this game and kind of look at next week. Next week is kind of the icing, this is the cake this week. You win this one and either one of us has the opportunity to set your own pace for the next two months. They had a tremendous win a couple of weeks ago against another team in the West. That put them on a different level, so to speak, of trying to get to Atlanta. It made this game that much more important. They know that. Our players know, we have let them know. There is no getting around it with a football team. Fans might be a different story. This is a game that both teams will be giving it all they've got. It will be a hard-nosed, very physical game at 11 a.m. right out here in Jordan-Hare.

On the South Carolina game...
"It was a great game by their offense. When you play against team like that, they are going to get long yardage plays. They are going to get you in a situation where there might be a lot of second-and-ones, but when you get them in a third-down situation or fourth down, which I think they had four of them, you have to step up. Our defense didn't step up in those situations. We did against LSU, we didn't against South Carolina. But that is a credit as much to South Carolina's offense as it was us. That was a situation where we knew we were going to get their best shot, and they performed. But good teams win games like that. You have to fight your way out of a scrap, and that was a scrap. We were fortunate to come out ahead. Now, we look and see what we did wrong and understand situations on the field and during the game. They converted a lot of third down and fourth down situations. We are very fortunate that we won that game because you win it on defense especially when you go on the road."

On Arkansas...
"They are very similar to what we do - run the ball physically - except they have a young quarterback. We went through it last year. We had a good football team last year with Brandon (Cox), who was a first-year starter. This young man is young, he's inexperienced, but you can tell he has grown. They do a good job of building the offense around him, which you have to do when you have a young quarterback. He has to understand what you are doing but he might not be able to do as much as he will be able to next year. I think they have done a good job of game planning and bringing him along. Is it going to fit our defense? You don't know week-to-week because of different offensive lineman. They have a very athletic offensive line that pass blocks well. When you put one of the better running backs in the country in the backfield, you have a chance. It will be a tall order and a big challenge for our defense this week, as it will be for theirs because of a lot of similarities."

On the situation at center...
"Jason Bosley has done a good job. He played some in a couple of games. He has practiced. He's a third-year guy. He has been a center from day one. He knows the calls, he knows what he is doing. He just hasn't been field tested that much. He's excited and I'm excited that he's excited. Sometimes you look at guys like this and they have that far away look. He doesn't have that. He knows he is going to be our center for the future. Joe (Cope) will have an opportunity probably to come back for a few games. Right now, Jason is the guy. Jonathan Palmer will be his backup. JP has played some games at center. I am looking forward to the challenge for him. Jason is probably a little bit more athletic than Joe. Joe has a little bit more bulk to him. It's a challenge not just for him, but a challenge for the two guards and the tackles working with the center to make sure he is confident. It will be an interesting game for Jason, being his first one, but it won't be his last. It will be one of many that he will have here starting at center for us."

On changing the offense with a new center...
"No, he knows it all. He has gone through every game plan. He played a lot and did very well in spring practice. The only thing as I said is he is not field-tested with 80,000 people and a national television audience out there, but that doesn't bother you very often. It will take him a couple of plays when someone knocks the heck out of him, and he'll wake up and understand that all those people around don't make any difference. It's the guy lined up in front of you that makes more difference than anything else. When you have a new center, you expect them to challenge him, and they will. I would be disappointed if they don't. I have been very impressed with what he has done so far."

On the offense being soft...
"Well, I like running the ball. Being soft can be put several different ways. I'd like to run about three or four different plays on offense and just run them over and over and over, but people on the other sideline have an opportunity to determine sometimes what you are going to do. I think most of our guys have held up to the challenge most of the year. We have made it hard on our offense in a lot of situations. Last week when we needed to open it up and make the plays, I was very impressed with the pass protection and Brandon standing in the pocket completing some very important passes on the road. Are we soft? We are not any softer than we have ever been, but I think that a lot of people are looking at situations where we have a lot of new guys playing. They might not be playing at the tempo that we played at last year with two seniors at offensive tackle. Jonathan Palmer and King Dunlap have held their own, and they have gotten better and that's all I can ask for them to do. I think it will be a good matchup this week with our offensive line and their defensive line."

On the upcoming games...
"This will be two of our biggest challenges. Fortunately for us, they are at home so we don't have to travel. When it is all said and done, the best team is going to win the game. Physically, we have challenged our players in practice on Sunday and today. We let them know pretty early by the tempo of the coaches and the tone of what we say and how we are coaching and pushing guys in practice about the urgency of what they are getting ready to expect. You can't do it every week; it is not going to happen. I thought last week our coaches handled the tempo pretty good in practice. It wasn't one of those `rah-rah' weeks, it was kind of a business trip so to speak, to take care or business. This week the tempo has picked up. We have all coached against Arkansas, we understand how hard they play and how well coached they are and how much of a challenge it is going to be for us. We have to turn around and do the same thing next week. These two games coming up are a major scale of where we are as a football team this point in the season."

On the kicking game...
"It's been the best kicking game we have had. John (Vaughn) has been on target most of the year. You couldn't ask for a better performance out of a punter. Kody had a 69-yard punt the other night in a hostile environment. Our kickoff guy didn't have the best week of kicking the ball in the end zone. He caught a couple of them a little fat and got it up and they had a chance to return, but we covered. That had been a big question mark: Is our coverage team going to cover when we don't get in the end zone and we passed that with flying colors. I think that Eddie Gran has done a good job of changing things around. We are going to make some changes this week on our punt return team personnel -- I'm not talking about the returner -- and just some philosophy on what we are doing because we are not getting as much out of that as what we had hoped. You are always looking for ways to make yourself better. I think if I were grading our special teams at this point, it would definitely be a solid `A' on how we've done and how we've managed the game with our special teams aside from the onside kick. That was just kind of a fluke deal. You try that and if it works it works, if it doesn't then I get hung the next week for about seven days. It worked, but I would have had confidence that our football team would have gone and won the game if we didn't kick it. It was just one of those things where we felt like we needed to change the momentum. Special teams have been good to us this year, it's been the most solid part of our football team. We have been hit and miss with offense and hit and miss with defense, but special teams have been pretty solid and hopefully they continue to do that. "

On Jonathan Wilhite...
"He is a heck of a football player and he was back full speed the last two practices. He could have played Thursday, but he just hadn't been in the game plan enough because we didn't push him hard enough in practice. Plus, the field was wet and it was a little cooler than what we had been practicing in. You can kind of tell by looking in these guys' eyes if they are 100 percent mentally ready to play a game and he wasn't ready to go, but he is ready to go this week."

On Brandon Cox...
"He is on and off. He has been sore since the LSU game. I thought that his performance Thursday showed that he has got more zip on the ball that he didn't have in the Buffalo game. He couldn't follow through then. Now with a couple of extra days off and not getting banged around, I think he is going to be as close to 100 percent as he is going to be all year. He is not going to get much better than he is right now because he has to practice and he has to play."