Sam Pittman provides updates on Jadon Haselwood injury, other offensive players

Arkansas‘ bye week is over and the team is readying for a road trip to Auburn, hopeful the additional time for rest and recovery has allowed a Jadon Haselwood injury to heal. Coach Sam Pittman addressed Haselwood’s status, while providing updates on a few other injured offensive players on Wednesday.

Haselwood, a starting receiver, was injured on Oct. 8 against Mississippi State but has battled through injuries throughout the season.

“Haselwood’s been dinged up. I think he’ll be fine,” Pittman said.

The junior receiver has caught 31 passes for 406 yards and two touchdowns this season, leading the team, so getting him fully healthy again would go a long way toward getting the Razorbacks fully back on track after a rough stretch.

Meanwhile, Pittman also provided positive updates on offensive linemen Marcus Henderson and Ty’Kieast Crawford.

“Henderson practiced a little bit, not a lot yesterday,” Pittman said. “So he’s probably still up in the air whether he’ll be able to play. But he did practice some yesterday.

“Crawford’s back, looked good. We moved him inside to play guard a little bit as well. I think him and Harris both can play tackle and guard. We’re trying to get a little bit more versatility out of Ty’Kieast and Harris.”

Pittman did note receiver Samuel Mbake had gotten ‘a little dinged up’ too, but the Arkansas coach said he thinks ‘he’ll be fine, too.’

Bye week helped injury report, allowed mental time off

On top of the extra time it provided to remedy the Jadon Haselwood injury and the various other bumps and bruises players were nursing, the bye week also gave Arkansas a chance to reset mentally.

Pittman said he thought that was arguably as important as anything after his team came off a rough stretch, losing three games in a row to ranked opponents before bouncing back with an impressive road win at BYU before the bye.

“I think rest a lot of times puts things in perspective, you’re not running running running, you’re looking at OK here’s where we are, this is what we’ve done, this is where we can get to,” Pittman said.

“We tried not to rest them mentally as far as prep, mental prep, film, walks, things of that nature for Auburn, but obviously when your body slows down your mind does too.”

Arkansas will travel to Auburn for a noon ET kickoff on Saturday, with a broadcast slated for the SEC Network.