The Tennessee Vols are facing a unique challenge on Saturday against the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Normally, by October, there aren’t many secrets about what a team will run on offense or defense — everything’s on film.

But that won’t necessarily be the case for Arkansas this weekend.

The Razorbacks have a new-look staff that will take the field for the first time on Saturday against the Vols. Arkansas fired head coach Sam Pittman late last month and promoted offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino to interim head coach. Petrino then dismissed several defensive staff members and brought in some fresh faces.

The expectation is that Arkansas will have some new defensive wrinkles against the Volunteers.

“You got a bunch of guys that are doing it for the first time now this season,” said Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle on Tuesday of the staff changes at Arkansas. “It kind of has a feel like the first game of the year, where you have what they’ve done, what you think they’ll do, but you also have to be prepared for really anything, because they’ve had two weeks as well.

“They had the bye so they can get whatever they want installed and ready to go. So just early in the ball game we’ve got to call sound football plays that you’re not getting too super specific with and just let your guys go play really fast.”

Arkansas defensive back Caleb Wooden details the biggest change the Razorbacks’ defense is making for the Tennessee game

The new staff at Arkansas has had almost two weeks to prepare for Tennessee, but that’s probably not enough time to install a new defensive scheme.

Instead, the Razorbacks are cutting down their defensive playbook for the matchup against the Vols to make it simpler for the players.

“That’s probably the most important thing — playing fast and knowing what you got to do,” said Razorbacks defensive back Caleb Wooden. “And so what we’ve done is we’ve cut down the playbook so that way we can play fast, get the calls from the sideline, line up, get in a good stance, and play fast.”

Playing fast will be important for the Razorbacks on Saturday — especially since it sounds like the Vols may be planning to utilize tempo even more than they have been so far this season.

“The tempo for us, it’s like I said, it’s always been a weapon,” said Halzle. “But exactly right — if they’re doing something completely new, let’s push the gas a little bit here and see if we can create some eye violations.”

Cutting down the playbook will undoubtedly help the Arkansas defenders to play faster. But Tennessee is more multiple on offense than they have been in recent years, which is why it’s possible that the thinner defensive playbook will put the Razorbacks at a disadvantage.

Tennessee Volunteers News

Tennessee Vols fans were warned about Jermod McCoy’s recovery from a torn ACL during the offseason

There was some speculation in recent weeks that Tennessee Vols cornerback Jermod McCoy, who tore his ACL in early January, might make his season debut this weekend against the Arkansas Razorbacks. Unfortunately for McCoy and the Vols, it doesn’t appear that will be the case. On3’s Chris Low and Pete Nakos reported on Monday that […]

Zach Ragan