Patton said Dean was offered a scholarship during the meeting. Dean, though, has yet to commit.

“Demetrius is very close to his family and told Arkansas he really wanted to think it over and speak with his family,” Patton said. “His dad lives in Forrest City so I know he wants to get everyone’s input and make a decision that he feels is best. I know he’s always dreamed of being a little Razorback so there’s no timetable when he’ll commit. It could be tomorrow, a month or a year. But I know Demetrius is very excited about his first offer being from a school the caliber of Arkansas.”

Patton said Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino attended Fayetteville’s 42-37 win on the road at Jefferson City, Mo., last Friday. Dean caught 10 passes for 109 yards, including touchdown receptions of 11, 26 and 24 yards, against Jeff City.

“I bet you there’s not too many sophomores over the years that have been offered by Arkansas,” Patton said. “Demetrius is a home-grown product. We’re just a block from the University and it says a lot about this Arkansas coaching staff that they recognize Demetrius as one of the top talents around, regardless of class, and they went after him. Being the head coach at Fayetteville, it makes me feel good to know they want our kids.”

Dean, a Ramay Junior High standout, now has 12 catches for 152 yards and 4 touchdowns on the season. He also hauled in a 38-yard touchdown catch in the season opener, a 35-0 win at home over Little Rock Central.

“Arkansas has seen a lot of Demetrius and they’ve been looking at him for some time,” Patton said. “Now Arkansas has just made it official.”

“We played Van Buren, Bryant, Bentonville and Har-Ber on the road last year and won all of them,” Patton said. “Bryant, Bentonville and Har-Ber were conference champions. A lot the kids have been here before and know how we approach things. They know how mentally tough you have to be to have success on the road. It doesn’t faze me or scare me to go on the road. Those were the cards we were dealt. Other people make a bigger deal out of it than we do. I’ve not heard the kids say one time that they didn’t like going on the road. They just want to play.”

Fayetteville will travel to Jefferson City, Mo., Russellville, Bentonville and Springdale High before returning home for four of their final five contests.

“It’s one less distraction, really,” Patton said. “When you’re on the road, it’s all centered on the Fayetteville Bulldogs. When we’re home, sometimes you’ve got distractions. Kids patting players on the back and pep rallies and more free time in the afternoons to get distracted.”

“We had to stay extremely basic when we went to the 4-3 last year,” Harris said. “You couldn’t teach an entire defense in four days. We didn’t think we got enough pressure on the quarterback so we’ve added a lot to this defense in the off-season and the kids are doing a good job. I think the biggest thing is the kids just need to start playing. The kids get tired of hitting each other. I think once we get on the field and then start looking at film and how they perform in games, I think their intensity level will pick up.”

Fayetteville had swapped out the 4-4 in favor of the 3-5 prior to the 2006 season.

“We had the personnel for it then,” Harris said. “But for whatever reason, the 3-5 didn’t work last year. Whether it was chemistry, coaching or whatever the case may be, so we switched. We contemplated going back to the 4-4 but we determined the 4-3 would be easier to teach in the middle of the season.”

“Overall, I think we can pick up the pace a little on offense,” Patton said. “At one point, we had run 33 plays with 10 minutes left in the second quarter. I think we ended up with 42 in a half. If we can average 70 plays in a game, we’re going to have a very good year and a lot of offensive stats. Hopefully that will lead to a lot of wins.”

“They’ve just got to keep plugging,” Patton said. “We don’t have a guy who’s going to be Joe Stud on everyone’s scouting report. I want them to say all our guys up front are good and we can’t leave any of them unblocked. If they do their job and keep guys off our linebackers, I feel like we can be really good.”

Fayetteville defensive coordinator Wendell Harris said the chemistry between his linebackers and defensive line will be key.

“Either the front guys have to pay exceptionally well or the linebackers have to be exceptional for us to be successful,” Harris said. “If we want to be really good then obviously both have to happen. If our front guys get pushed around, the linebackers have to make big plays. It’s easier for the linebackers to make plays if the line does their job.”

“We’ll rotate as many people as we can,” said Wendell Harris, FHS defensive coordinator. “If Cody goes on another 15-play drive at tailback, we’re going to need some fresh legs at linebacker. But I saw some good things from the guys who didn’t start in the scrimmage and we’re going to use a lot of them. They’ve all got to be ready to play.”

Fayetteville head coach Daryl Patton said the Mike linebacker will need to boost his intensity by the season opener against Little Rock Central Sept. 5.

“We’ve got to get more production from our Mike linebacker,” Patton said. “He was getting blocked a little bit in the scrimmage. But that allowed Cody Hammer to make plays and he did.”

“They’ve done a pretty good job communicating on the field,” Harris said. “We busted a few assignments in the scrimmage, two coverages that were easy to see. But [free safety] Steven Shelton and [strong safety] Bobby Petrino have done a real good job at this point communicating what coverage we’ve checked into and that’s their job. So far the linebackers have done a pretty good job of communicating between themselves and the defensive line. Are we great? No. Are we getting better? Yes. Hopefully that improvement will continue. We don’t have a lot of vocal leaders. That doesn’t bother me as long as they play hard and it’s all business inside the white lines.”

“What happened against Shiloh was that we got our guys blocked and they were slanting to A gaps and bringing a linebacker,” Patton said. “We were running a lot of plays between the guard box and they put four guys there. Any type of off-tackle play, we could have really hurt them but we didn’t want to do that yet. That’s something that’s still in our bag of tricks. Just like last year, we wanted to have a balanced attack. I think we’re going to get there.”

“On the zone runs, we were having some leakage, some run-throughs and that’s something we’ve definitely got to clean up,” Patton added. “Overall I was pleased, not ecstatic, but pleased. I think the defensive line we were up against was one of the better ones we’ll see and I think that had something to do with it, too.”

Fayetteville also fumbled once in the backfield, something Patton said his team can’t afford to do in what bodes to be a heated conference race.

“We had one fumble but looking at the film it’s hard to tell if he ever had the ball or if he was hit as he was getting it or what,” Patton said. “We’ve just got to do a better job overall of protecting the football and giving our guys times to make the play.”

“Defensively, we’ve got to line up a little faster and recognize formations quicker and get our calls finished,” Patton said. “We had a mix-up in the secondary and we’ve got to get that corrected. But I liked the fact that we swarmed to the football. You have to like the fact that we created a lot of turnovers. There were a lot more positives than negatives but we’ve got to get those mistakes corrected.”

Patton said he was impressed with his depth in the secondary, an area he labeled as the Purple Dogs’ strongest on defense.

“I was real impressed with Bentley Banister,” Patton said. “I thought he took some major steps to let me know that he wanted to play on Friday nights. I like all of our starters and with Coy Holmes and Kellen Summers spot playing. Reid Murray is another guy who can help there so I feel real good about our depth in the secondary. It’s better than we’ve had.”

Fayetteville defensive coordinator Wendell Harris said that depth will bolster a solid secondary group. But Harris said the experience factor in the defensive backfield is the biggest asset.

“We’ve got more experience there,” Harris said. “It’s a tough place to play. If I make a mistake as a defensive tackle usually only the coach and myself will know. If I make a mistake at corner everyone in the stadium knows. They’ve got have a short memory because it’s a tough place to play. Experience will help them.”