An Arkansas player you might not expect makes Bruce Feldman’s “Freaks” list

Not KJ Jefferson. Not Rocket Sanders. Arkansas’ biggest freak hasn’t even played for the Hogs yet.

Remember Treylon Burks?

Of course you do. You’re here because you’re an Arkansas fan, probably, and Burks is perhaps the best wide receiver in school history. At least the best of this millennium. The current Tennessee Titans wide receiver was also the highest ranked freak on writer Bruce Feldman’s annual list of such college players back in 2021.

Now, in 2023, Arkansas has had another player crack Feldman’s Top 100 over at The Athletic. It isn’t quarterback KJ Jefferson or running back Rocket Sanders, though, the players who probably came first to mind.

No, instead, it’s a player who hasn’t yet played a down for the Razorbacks. A player who hasn’t yet played a down of Division I football, actually.

Arkansas wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa checked in at No. 83 on the 2023 Freaks List (subscription required) released earlier in the week.

The list isn’t one that ranks the best players in the sport. It also doesn’t rank players based on projection or future status. Simply put, the list is Feldman’s notation of the greatest athletes the sport has to offer from across the spectrum of college football.

At 6-foot-4 and 216 pounds, TeSlaa has the build of an SEC wide receiver, certainly. He benches 315 pounds, has a 38-inch vertical and a 10-feet, 5-inch long jump. His statistics at Hillsdale College in Division II were dynamite, too (68 catches for 1,325 yards and 13 touchdowns).

It remains to be seen whether it all comes together in Fayetteville, of course, what with the season still two-plus weeks away. But early signs in Arkansas’ fall camp seem to suggest that TeSlaa will be the Razorbacks’ No. 1 receiver.

After DII ball? That would be freaky enough.

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