Throughout fall camp, Sam Pittman didn’t shy away from talking about Arkansas’ offensive line struggles.
Following the departures of Ricky Stromberg and Dalton Wagner to the NFL, the Hogs had to do some shuffling on up front. Arkansas’ projected two-deep, includes three seniors, one junior and three sophomores. Of the players in the two-deep, only five have experience playing against SEC competition.
The majority of that experience lies on the interior of the offensive line, where senior guard [autotag]Brady Latham[/autotag], senior center [autotag]Beaux Limmer[/autotag] and junior transfer guard [autotag]Josh Braun[/autotag] are projected to lead. At the tackle spot is where offensive line coach [autotag]Cody Kennedy[/autotag] could have issues.
Arkansas will be relying on sophomores [autotag]Patrick Kutas[/autotag] and [autotag]Devon Manuel[/autotag], who have yet to get meaningful snaps against SEC opponents. That’s where a lot of the offensive line’s highly-publicized pass protection struggles stemmed from during fall camp.
Now, things aren’t always as bad as they seem and [autotag]Cody Kennedy[/autotag]’s got a lot of talent for his third season in Fayetteville. But the pressure is on. Arkansas has KJ Jefferson and Rocket Sanders to lead a high-octane offensive attack, but that won’t mean anything if they don’t have help up front.
Let’s take a deeper look at the offensive line’s depth chart ahead of week one.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=128]