Tag: Arkansas football

Arkansas spring football projected depth chart: Wide Recievers

Our spring positional preview for the Arkansas football team continues today with a look at the Razorbacks wide receivers. Everyone – literally – who made a grab for the Hogs last year is back. That should be a good thing, even if Arkansas’ passing …

Our spring positional preview for the Arkansas football team continues today with a look at the Razorbacks wide receivers.

Everyone – literally – who made a grab for the Hogs last year is back. That should be a good thing, even if Arkansas’ passing game struggled. Consistency will go a long way in making the unit better.

It wasn’t as though they were terrible as a group last year. When quarterback KJ Jefferson had time to throw, they made plays, generally. Of course, part of the reason Jefferson took as many sacks as he did was his receivers’ inability to get open often enough, too.

But now that Andrew Armstrong and Isaac TeSlaa have a taste of FBS football and Isaiah Sategna and Tyrone Broden are a year into their Arkansas careers, too, there’s no reason to think of the wide receiving corps as a weakness.

New offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino has no qualms about heaving the football, so regardless of who wins Arkansas’ quarterback job, expect the wideouts’ numbers to go increase.

Here’s a look at how we have the wide receivers stacked heading into the spring.

  • View quarterback preview here
  • View running back preview here

Report: Arkansas to hire Petrino disciple Kolby Smith as new RB coach

Arkansas’ coaching staff appears to be shaping up very Petrino-like.

According to a report from 247Sports’ Brandon Marcello, Arkansas has already found its new running backs coach.

Kolby Smith, 39, who has spent the last four years with the Miami Dolphins and who played for Petrino at running back at Louisville, is reportedly set to take over for Jimmy Smith. Jimmy Smith resigned earlier in the week, reportedly to take the same job at Texas Christian where former Arkansas offensive coordinator Kendal Briles runs the Horned Frogs offense.

Kolby Smith isn’t unfamiliar with Fayetteville. He worked as a grauate assistant at Arkansas in 2012 before leaving to work with Petrino at Western Kentucky until 2018. From there, he spent one season as the running backs coach at Rutgers before making his way to the NFL.

Arkansas’ running back room has a lot of bodies, but not a lot of recent production. Rashod Dubinion and Dominique Johnson both return from last year’s roster, but they combined to rush for just 427 yards. The Hogs brought in Utah transfer Ja’Quinden Jackson from Utah and he is expected to be the primary back.

Kolby Smith played three seasons in the NFL, mostly on practice squads, after being taken in the fifth round of the 2007 draft.

Is good or bad that Arkansas has more questions than answers this spring?

Quarterback. Running back. Offensive line. Linebacker. Kicker. But we think, considering last year’s 4-8, questions are a good thing this spring.

With spring practices now underway as of Thursday for the Arkansas football team, the buzz surrounding the Razorbacks is tamer than most years.

Part of the reason is because Arkansas is coming off its worst season since the Chad Morris era. Part of it is because Arkansas has had only one high-quality season in the last decade-ish. And part of it is that it’s just early March and sports fans are prone to taking off this time of year if their basketball team isn’t NCAA Tournament bound.

The reality is Arkansas is loaded with questions, not answers, heading into Sam Pittman’s fifth year at the helm. From our perspective, though, that’s a good thing. Any team that went four games below .500 the previous year and feels like they have things figured out in March is probably going to go four games under .500 again in the fall.

Only a handful of the questions will be answered in the spring, too. Coach Sam Pittman said he wants to know his starting quarterback before summer break. Taylen Green, a transfer from Boise State, is the leading candidate, but Natural State natives wouldn’t mind seeing Jacolby Criswell in the role, either. Redshirt freshman Malachi Singleton ran the second-team offense in the team’s first practice Thursday, though.

Running back has issues, too. Rashod Dubinion is back, though, his freshman season two years ago showed more potential than the struggle last year. How much of that struggle was because of the offensive line, a line, by the way, injecting three new starters? R-Dub, as Pittman calls him, will have to hold off four-star freshman Braylen Russell and Utah transfer Ja’Quinden Jackson, whose numbers with the Utes last year were superior. After going without a true No. 1 back last year because of Rocket Sanders’ injuries and ineffectiveness, Pittman said he would prefer a primary ball-carrier in 2024.

None of this is counting a linebacker corps that is completely rebuilt after losing the top four players from last year or that offensive line that struggled so mightly in 2023.

But the fact that so many questions abound is probably a good things for a team had the season it did last year. Whether things change this year is a matter of whether those questions get answered.

Such answers started Thursday.

Taylen Green begins as Arkansas starting quarterback at first spring practice

Green is the front-runner for the gig, though Jacolby Criswell has a legit shot, as well.

KJ Jefferson had been a staple on the Arkansas football team for the last five years. His transfer left the Razorbacks with the biggest hole they have, arguably, ever had the position.

On Thursday, at Arkansas’ first spring practice without Jefferson since the Chad Morris era, Taylen Green took first-team reps. The Boise State transfer is one of four players vying for the starting gig this spring and the one with the most experience.

Green threw for more than 1,752 yards mostly as a starter for the Broncos last year, though he played off the bench during a stretch in the middle of the season. His 11 passing touchdowns led the team, but he also threw nine interceptions.

His biggest competition for the job at Arkansas is Jacolby Criswell, a Morrilton High grad. Criswell transferred from North Carolina the season before last and spent the 2023 campaign as Jefferson’s back-up.

Freshman KJ Jackson and redshirt freshman Malachi Jackson are also in the mix, though Jackson is largely expected to redshirt.

Whoever wins the job will have a bevy of options to whom he can throw. All of Arkansas’ top six receivers from last year returned. Jefferson, who left as Arkansas’ all-time leading passer, threw for more than 2,100 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions last year. He transferred to Central Florida over the winter.

The Razorbacks will continue spring practices during the first week on Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Sam Pittman lands a commitment from in-state linebacker

Arkansas’ depth at linebacker grew with the commitment of Preston Davis on Saturday.

One of the thinnest groups on the Arkansas football roster heading into the 2024 season is linebacker. With Saturday’s addition, another body has been added to the room.

Little Rock Christian linebacker Preston Davis committed to the Razorbacks as a preferred walk-on over the weekend. He chose Arkansas as a walk-on over scholarship offers at places like Central Arkansas, Harding, Pittsburg State and others.

Davis said he picked the Razorbacks after developing relationships with defensive coaches Travis Williams and Marcus Woodson, especially, he told WholeHogSports.

“Coach (Williams) is a very enthusiastic and energetic guy, which is what you need for football, and he’s very unashamed about his faith in Jesus and the importance … to him, which is very important to me as well.”

A 5-foot-11, 210-pound linebacker, Davis had 132 tackles, including six for-loss with two sacks and a forced fumble last year. For his career, he will leave Little Rock Christian with more than 400 tackles

Arkansas lost its four primary linebacker – Chris Paul Jr., Antonio Grier, Jordan Crook and Jaheim Thomas – from last season either to exhausted eligibility or the transfer portal.

Longtime Arkansas athletic trainer Dean Weber passes away at age 78

Dean Weber served as an athletics trainer at the University of Arkansas for 35 years, before leaving the sideline in 2008.

For more than half a century, Dean Weber was a fixture at the University of Arkansas, from the sidelines to the Razorback Foundation. The Hall of Fame trainer for the Hogs, not only cared for thousands of student-athletes on his watch, but also became a dear friend to many.

After a long battle with health issues, the 78-year-old Weber passed away in Fayetteville on Tuesday, leaving behind a legacy that will live on throughout the Ozarks.

The Chantilly, Va., native joined the Arkansas training staff in 1973, and shortly replaced head athletic trainer Jim Bone following spring football of that year. His tenure went on to span 35 years and eight head football coaches.

After leaving the sidelines, Weber joined the staff at the Razorback Foundation. When he was inducted into the Arkansas Hall of Fame in 2018, his 45 years of service was noted as the third-longest tenure within the athletics department, behind coaching legends, Frank Broyles and Norm DeBriyn.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of a true Razorback legend in Dean Weber,” Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Hunter Yurachek said. “For more than 50 years, Dean has been dedicated to the University of Arkansas and the student-athletes who donned the Razorback uniform. While his accomplishments were many, his true legacy is in the thousands of relationships he formed with student-athletes, coaches, administrators and colleagues. He made a meaningful difference in the lives of so many. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dean’s sons Matt and Ben and all those who were blessed to know and love Dean Weber.”

Weber’s duties including far more than wrapping ankles and icing injuries. He was in charge of all the training room protocol and administration, while meeting the athletes’ nutritional needs away from campus. He also coordinated all of the football program’s travel schedule and details.

He never missed a football game during his tenure as head athletic trainer, working 416 consecutive games, before leaving the sideline following the Arkansas-Missouri Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 2008.

Weber then took on a new role as the Director of Equipment Operations, overseeing equipment operations for all 19 Razorback athletic programs. He joined the Razorback Foundation as an assistant director in 2014.

After serving three times on the athletic training staff at the National Sports Festival, Weber was selected as athletic trainer for the United States Olympic Team in 1984.

A celebration of life for Weber will be held on April 13 at 4 p.m. inside Bud Walton Arena, and will coincide with the A Club Spring Reunion that weekend.

The family requests that memorial tributes be made to the Dean Weber Endowed Athletic Training Scholarship Fund, within the UA College of Education and Health Professions.

Column: Arkansas Razorbacks fans are bored, angry, antsy

Arkansas sports fans used to be about all things Razorbacks. Now, just like everywhere else, Hogs faithful are caught in culture wars.

Love Taylor Swift or hate Taylor Swift? Think the NFL is too woke or too corporate? Ever seen a State Farm commercial?

You were sure enough in luck on Sunday, then, for the Super Bowl had some appeal to you. It didn’t matter if you were watching because you always do, watching for your favorite team or hate-watching, more than 60% of households across the United States were tuned in to the game, enough for an American viewing-audience record.

Personally, I’m not much of an NFL fan. Don’t misread that. It doesn’t mean that I despise it. The sentence just means I would not qualify myself with the term “fan” when it comes to a nominative. Too many years in this business at too many places that over-emphasized it wore me out. Hardly a cynic. Just exhausted.

Lots of people reading this column know that feeling, exhaustion. Arkansas sports are in a dead spot right now, as dead as I have encountered in my decade-plus covering Razorbacks sports. I’m tempted to say it’s as dead right now as I have encountered in my 22 years of adulthood, most of which has been spent in the shadow of university’s campus.

After football’s – ahem – fumbling of what should have been at least a 7-5 season and now with Arkansas basketball treading water around .500 with less than half of the SEC slate remaining, fan interest is low. Ambivalence abounds. So does apathy. Not a lot exists to get folks excited about the Hogs right now.

Baseball is near and Dave Van Horn’s team should draw some excitement. The Diamond Hogs are ranked in the top four in every legitimate college baseball poll in the game and DVH is all but guaranteed to lead Arkansas back to the NCAA Tournament. He’s done so every season in which he has called Fayetteville home except for one. 

Even then, time will pass before interest turns into excitement. Ask around the media who cover the Razorbacks throughout the year. People just don’t care and even with baseball, several weeks pass before much more than the hardcore interest begins to show. The sad truth is Arkansas’ fan base, as much as it thinks it’s different than all the others across the country, isn’t nearly as hardcore as it thinks. The “ride or die” mentality, the pride in all things Natural State, sorry, it’s a myth or, more likely, an ethos from a generation long gone. The old-timers – not just in age, but in attitude – are fewer in number, and passion, than before.

Now it’s more fun to gripe about or stan some cultural moment, like Taylor Swift or Pat McAfee or liberal California or heaven knows what else.

Yep. Exhausting.

These five Hogs are headed to the NFL combine

The last time Arkansas did not have a player taken in the NFL Draft? It was 1995.

The last time an Arkansas football player was not taken in the NFL Draft, the Tennessee Titans were still the Houston Oilers in 1995.

The streak should continue in 2024, especially as five (former?) Arkansas players were invited to the 2024 NFL Draft combine this week. Offensive linemen Beaux Limmer and Brady Latham, kicker Cam Little, defensive end Trajan Jeffcoat and cornerback Dwight McGlothern will all take part in front of dozens of pro teams ahead of the April draft.

Little is the highest rated of the bunch, though that doesn’t mean he stands the best chance at being drafted. Kickers are not in high demand in the draft typically. Little, however, should be taken as he is rated the top kicker in the whole draft, per ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr.

Limmer, who can play center and guard, is also rated in the top 10 at his position (in this case, center). Latham, who can also play both positions, may very well be taken nearby.

McGlothern and Jeffcoat were both transfers from elsewhere in the SEC. Jeffcoat played one season with Arkansas after arriving from Missouri, while McGlothern played two seasons in Fayetteville upon leaving LSU.

The combine will be held from Feb. 26 to March 4 and the draft itself is April 25-27.

Hogs in the Super Bowl: Every former Arkansas football player to ever make it

A lot of America is tuning in to see if Taylor Swift makes the Super Bowl. Arkansas fans are watching Dre Greenlaw.

Everyone who isn’t a Niners or Chiefs fan may be focused on Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Sunday.

Unless you’re from Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Dre Greenlaw and Brandon Allen were All-SEC type of players during their time playing for the Arkansas football team in the late 2010s. Before that, they were all-class type of players during their playing time for the Fayetteville High School football team in the early 2010s.

If one believes that success breeds success, it’s fits for Greenlaw and Allen, both of whom will participate in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday when their team, the San Francisco 49ers, play the Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas.

That phrase, “success breeds success,” isn’t just about Greenlaw’s and Allen’s coincidental together-ness on the football field. It’s also about how Allen is now tied for the Super Bowl appearances for a former Arkansas player in history. And Greenlaw is one behind him, with Sunday’s game marking his second such.

For Allen, the third-string quarterback for the Niners, the game will be his third, but for three different teams. Both of Greenlaw’s trips to the Super Bowl have come with San Francisco. But besides them, who was the last former Razorbacks football player to play in the most famous individual game in the world?

Well, here is the complete list of former Arkansas players who have made it to the Super Bowl.

The No. 1 high-school football player in Arkansas commits to Hogs

The best players from the Natural State had been slipping out the door lately. Carius Curne isn’t going anywhere.

One of the best high-school offensive linemen in the Class of 2025 calls the state of Arkansas home.

He will do so for a few more years, too.

Carius Curne, a four-star offensive tackle from Marion High, committed to the Arkansas football team on Wednesday. The Razorbacks earned his commitment over poewrhouses Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Florida, Tennessee and fellow SEC schools Missouri and Mississippi State. Basically everybody.

Most of the recruiting web sites have Curne listed as an offensive tackle. In theory, he could also play defensive tackle. Besides head coach Sam Pittman, offensive line coach Eric Mateos and defensive line coach Deke Adams recruited Curne to the Hogs.

Arkansas should return a lot of offensive line depth for the 2025 when Curne arrives, though if the unit struggles like they did in 2023, that may not matter. For 2024, the Razorbacks have 14 linemen on scholarship with only Ty’Kieast Crawford and Josh Braun seniors.

At 6-foot-4 and 301 pounds, Curne is the 175th-ranked player in the class and the top-ranked player from the state of Arkansas.