Few Arkansas athletes have been as beloved as Connor Noland in the last decade.
The Razorbacks’ pitcher and former quarterback, plus a Greenwood graduate, Noland had to play through the Chad Morris era in football and deal with a season lost to injury and another to COVID in baseball.
In 2021, his fifth season in Fayetteville, Noland was the Arkansas ace. He had 113 strikeout in 116 innings with a 3.65 earned-run average. Noland was even better in the postseason, rocking a 1.53 ERA in 29 1/3 innings as Arkansas made it within a game of reaching the National Championship series.
That season was enough to have him selected in the ninth round of the 2022 MLB draft by the Chicago Cubs on Monday night, likely signaling the end of his career with the Razorbacks.
Noland had mentioned in the early summer that he was considering returning to Arkansas for a sixth and final season. But as pointed out by Best of Arkansas Sports’ Andrew Hutchinson, 99 percent of players taken in the first 10 rounds sign.