After watching, Missouri, Baylor, OSU, ISU this weekend it’s painfully obvious the new coach the to pay much more attention to getting In State kids and coaching them up with state pride. That’s been overlooked this last decade
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Not sure there are enough of them anymore.
The big TE at Iowa State from Prairie Grove sure looked the part.
John Tate Jr. from Pine Bluff plays on the DL at Memphis and could definitely help this team.
The WR playing for Missouri reminded me of Drew Morgan.
Lots of kids have been overlooked.
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Bieleima and Morris overlooked more Arkansas kids who could have helped their team than any HC ever.
The trick here is that you can’t “win” recruiting standings by signing a bunch of two star Arkansas kids. The HC would get blasted by having to “fall back” on the local kids, rather than beat other schools for out of state kids.
I tend to agree that the past two staffs let too many homegrown players get away. I always thought the want-to exhibited by a lot of the Arkansas players he signed was one of the keys to Houston Nutt’s success here. Mitch Petrus was probably the one who embodied that the best, but there were others, too. Nutt’s SEC West championship teams had a lot of Arkansas starters, many of whom were not that highly recruited. But they developed and played hard.
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I would rather win games than recruiting standings. We lost more than just 2 star players to other teams.
We are not winning either…
Let’s go over some of them:
North Little Rock WR KJ Hill - Arkansas put as much effort as legally possible in landing him. He and his family decided it was best for him to sign with Ohio State or Alabama. While I don’t like the way they went about things, it’s hard to argue he made a bad decision.
Pine Bluff’ s TE-DE John Tate - Missed evaluation by Arkansas, but he did seem to have a motor issue in high school and was also miffed about not being offered earlier than he was by Arkansas. Then Memphis head coach Justin Fuente offered him six weeks before he committed. When Fuente moved on to Virginia Tech and Mike Norvell stayed on him.
Fayetteville QB Taylor Powell - Dan Enos basically chose Daulton Hyatt over Taylor although Arkansas did offer Taylor. He first committed to Wake Forest, but has always loved Missouri - as well as Arkansas - and ended up there.
Fayetteville WR Barrett Bannister - The grandson of Arkansas coaching legend Harold Horton, Barrett hoped for a preferred walk on spot with Arkansas that never came. Missouri did offer him one.
Fayetteville DT Akial Byers - Did not like the way he was treated by the Arkansas staff, committed to
Alabama, was dropped by them and Missouri picked him up. I was not a big fan of the way the recruiting process on either Arkansas’ end or his.
Little Rock Christian TB Damarea Crockett - In hindsight a miss by Arkansas, but Whaley was higher rated and the Razorback staff thought they could do better. Many of you on this board thought so as well.
Prairie Grove TE Dylan Soehner - Got very little recruiting attention for the longest with UCA and Missouri State being his offers,. Then came Memphis, Iowa State and Arkansas State. No offer from Arkansas. He has 7 catches, all 7 coming this season as a junior.
Luc Bequette another miss…too many misses.
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Yes, Luc was a bad miss.
Can we dissect the gets we got that others didn’t want?
I would rather win the games too. I love seeing Arkansas kids on the field too. My post was more about how some of the fans act when we “settle” for Arkansas kids over a higher ranked player out of state. You do make a good point that we have lost some highly ranked kids too.
I do hope to see more Arkansas kids on the roster, although most need a little extra time to be developed.
Isaiah Simmons at Clemson was another miss, although not in state. He’s from Kansas. He grew up an Arkansas fan and asked them to recruit him. Clemson lost a linebacker commit and Brent Vennables called some Kansas coaches about any available linebackers there and got on Simmons. He’s the best player on their defense now, a first team linebacker. Now, he was a late bloomer, but Clemson knew about him many miles from home. When he says he grew up wanting to be a Razorback and wasn’t recruited by Arkansas, it makes you sick.
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Yes it does. Hopefully, the next staff will have less of these gaffs. Although, we may have a lot less kids growing up as Arkansas fans with our recent poor performances, so that might take care of that problem…
In my opinion, Taylor Powell is almost identical to the Allen boys. He is about the same size and has about the same arm. He did almost the same things at Fayetteville. If Brandon and Austin were good enough, then Taylor is good enough.
I think Enos was stuck on the height. He wanted 6-4 quarterbacks. Jim Chaney, as Georgia coach, came to Fayetteville to watch Taylor throw and said he did everything well enough but was under sized. He said they were also going after some 6-3 and 6-4 quarterbacks and would take them first but had Taylor on the next list. Jim told Taylor if he was a little taller, everyone in the country would take him.
Now, the irony is that Dan Enos took the 6-4 Daulton Hyatt, who was not offered by Alabama. Instead, Alabama had Jalen Hurts and Tua Taglovailoa. Neither is much taller than Taylor. Dan Enos got to coach them at Alabama. Would he have takent them because of their lack of height?
I would say that you have to get it right in state. I know 85 scholarships and 25 per year makes it tough. But that’s the key to winning at Arkansas, evaluation at home. I’d take more chances in-state.
How you make them feel as far as the preferred walk-on route is important. Vest and Nix in the current O-line are good walk-ons and may eventually get on the field. That’s how you build depth. Just have to do more in that regard.
I think Brian Bannister would have come to Arkansas in a heartbeat if the head coach had wanted him. Now, you have to understand that Tim Horton is his uncle and turned down a Bielema offer (below the price he was offered at Auburn) that eventually got Barry Lunney a job. Harold was eventually discarded by Jeff Long at the foundation. You add it up anyway you want, but it’s clear what happened to Bannister.
Taylor and Byers are a bit different, and the Byers thing was complex. It involved an evaluation from UA line coach Rory Segrest, eventually fired. Segrest was also the recruiter on Hyatt in Alabama. Segrest’s son played back-up DL to Byers at Fayetteville. Yes, it’s complex. So Rory knew all the back stories on the Fayetteville kids. He gets blamed for information given to Bielema and maybe there is some merit.
So it comes down to judgment made by assistant coaches and the head coach using that feedback to make decisions. It all looks flawed to me and probably just the tip of the iceberg in so many other situations on evaluations, too.
You either get it right on evaluations, or you don’t. They did not get it right way too many times.
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Not sure I see the miss on Powell. Saw him play for Fayetteville High, and thought he was a system QB. He is now third-string at Missouri, and some of his throws on Friday were indicative of that.
You and I disagree. The system that he ran under Bill Blankenship was a college offense. He ran it well. He can make all of the throws. He made one poor throw in the second half against Arkansas, the interception.
That old hindsight is 20/20. WPS
Well, that’s what I said at the time, that I would take Taylor Powell. So my view has never changed. I do not get to offer scholarships. Probably good thing because I would probably make lots of mistakes, too.