re: 2015 Arkansas Recruiting Thread - Football & Basketball Commits

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It's so stupid that kickers and punters are as undervalued as they are by the recruiting services.

They should use the same eval criteria with them as other positions. There's no reason for there to be 50+ 4 star QB's when maybe 10-15 will ever be a starter at the school they sign with out of HS. A bigtime kicker or punter actually makes an impact on wins and losses all the time.

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Any word on whether the coaches are looking at Johnson for kickoffs and/or placekicking duties in addition to punting?

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No reason to. We're redshirting a legit kicker this year.

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Maybe we'll redshirt Hedlund again next year


I kid, I kid.

Arkansas Recruiting: The Fence Around The State Is Finally Built

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Schools like Florida, Texas A&M, LSU, and Alabama have a luxury that Arkansas does not. Those schools have a large number of talented recruits each year who reside inside of their particular state. States like Florida have over 100 players each year who can play big time Power 5 conference football, while Arkansas usually has around 6-7 each year.

In his opening press conference Bielema said, like every Razorback coach before him, that he wanted to build a fence around the state of Arkansas, that if any high school player in Arkansas could play SEC-caliber football he needed to come to Fayetteville. And when rumors about Michael Dyer trying to transfer to Arkansas started to come out, Bielema said that if a player wanted to leave the state of Arkansas, he needed to know that he wasn't going to be welcomed back.

Every coach as far as anyone can remember has said similar things about instate recruiting. The only problem was that they haven't been particularly great at it, until now.

Since 2000 (We'll start there since that's as far back as online recruiting services go) Arkansas has lost at least 26 players from inside the state of Arkansas in which they had offered a scholarship. To put that into perspective, that's an entire recruiting class worth of players. In that same time they have kept the #1 ranked player in the state just 7 times.

Here's a quick rundown of the players Arkansas let slip away. To be fair, while these players had scholarship offers, some of them were not heavily recruited by the Razorbacks, but the Hogs did go hard for many of them.

2000:

Harold James- 4* Safety, Alabama.

2001:

Cedric Houston- 5* Running Back, Tennessee.

2002:

De'Angelo Williams- 4* Running Back, Memphis.

2003:

Bret Smith- 4* Wide Receiver, Tennessee.

Roshaun Fellows- 3* Linebacker, Tennessee

2004:

Brett Helms- 3* Offensive Guard, LSU.

Matt Stoltz- 4* Linebacker, LSU.

2005:

Slick Shelley- 4* Wide Receiver, Tennessee.

Ricardo Kemp- 3* Athlete, Tennessee.

2006:

Bartley Webb- 3* Offensive Tackle, Notre Dame.

2007:

Lee Zimba- 4* Offensive Tackle, Auburn.

Kodi Burns- 4* Quarterback, Auburn.

Broderick Green- 4* Running back, USC (later transferred back to Arkansas)

Zack Pianalto- 3* Tight End, North Carolina.

Cam Baker- 3* Wide Receiver, Memphis.

2008:

Jack Byrne- 3* Tight End, Wisconsin. (Bret out-recruiting Petrino for this one way back in the day)

2009:

Derek Johnson- 4* Defensive Tackle, Texas.

Jesse Grandy- 3* Athlete, Ole Miss.

2010:

Michael Dyer- 5* Running Back, Auburn.

Dakota Mosley- 3* Tight End, Auburn.

Brishen Matthews- 3* Safety, Ole Miss.

Parker Mack- 3* Offensive Guard, Princeton.

2011:

Keihl Frazier- 4* Quarterback, Auburn.

2012:

Zac Brooks- 4* Athlete, Clemson.

2013:

Altee Tenpenny- 4* Running Back, Alabama.

2014:

Josh Frazier- 4* Defensive Tackle, Alabama.

For the 2015 class, Arkansas got commitments from every instate player they offered 3 months before signing day.

Arkansas' biggest in-state class is without a doubt the 2008 class. That class - with 15 signees from Arkansas - was filled with talented players that paved the way for Arkansas' success in 2010 and 2011. Sure, Arkansas has had 10 or more players sign from the state before before, but the 2015 class is different. The 2015 class is deep, deep in talent. All but one of the commitments has at least one other offer to go play at another SEC school.

In terms of player rankings, per 247Sports, Arkansas' lowest instate commit is rated an 86. That's a high 3 star. Depending on which recruiting service you look at, 7 of the 10 players are 4* recruits on different services.

That's not just abnormal for Arkansas, that's unprecedented. That far out numbers any class from the past.

Given what history has showed us, if you can keep the talented players from the state, it will translate to wins. McFadden in the 2005 class, and Wilson, Wright, Adams, and the rest of the 2008 class are all evidence of this. Only time will tell if this remains true, but you have to like the direction it's headed. We haven't seen what the Razorbacks can do when they keep everyone inside the borders of Arkansas.

Give Bret Bielema credit where it is due. It took him 2 full recruiting classes at Arkansas to accomplish something no other coach in recent memory has been able to. Coming off of a year where they went 3-9 no less.

Arkansas has been making waves outside of Arkansas as well. Stealing Hjalte Froholdt from Denmark/Ohio/Florida and flipping a Rawleigh Williams from Ole Miss are big gets for Bielema and his staff. On paper, this is one of Arkansas' more talented classes ranking wise, and we are still a long way away from signing day.

With 17 commitments, Arkansas' recruiting class is ranked 18th in the nation per 247Sports. They have 8 scholarships left in 2015 class.

*All 2015 commitments are non-binding until a player has signed, and sent a letter of intent to a school*

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Interesting article, probably worthy of its own topic as of the names listed only:

Houston
Williams
Stoltz
Ziemba
Frazier*

Would be considered "misses".

*TBD

Off the top of my head:
Shelley
Green
Johnson
Grandy
Dyer
Mosely
K Frazier

All transferred from the team they signed with.

Grandy, Dyer, and Mosely were kicked off their teams.

Not all the players on the list were "SEC Caliber" which is the premise of the article, yeah, they had a good number of * next to their name...

IIRC Cam Baker couldn't qualify to get into Arkansas which is why he ended up in Memphis.

Pianalto committed to UNC as soon as Butch got there, IIRC, his family and Butch had some sort of connection from Butch's time here.

I'm pretty sure he was offered, or at least would have gotten an offer if Nutt had any shot, Freeman was always going to be moved inside, mainly due to to his non-man boob large handed body.

One player that is constantly ignored as a miss or as anything is Mike Brisiel. He graduated from Fayetteville HS, wasn't recruited hard at all, went to Colorado St. and worked his way into 8 seasons in the NFL starting 77 out of 80 games played. His NFL career seems to have pretty much ended over the summer but he's always forgotten about in these discussions as the ones that got away.

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younger Brother walked on for a season @ LSU

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You sure about that, Clark?
I thought he played quite a bit down there.

ETA: From LSU bio on Brett Helms...

CAREER One of the most productive and consistent offensive linemen in school history ... Played in 46 games during his LSU career, starting 41 times ... Made 39 starts at center and LSU was 30-9 in those games ... Other starts came at left guard during his redshirt freshman season in 2005 ... Graduated in May of 2008 with a degree in general studies ... Signed a free agent contract with the Houston Texans in April of 2009.

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younger Brother walked on for a season @ LSU



You sure about that, Clark?
I thought he played quite a bit down there.

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sounds like 870 was talking about brett helms little brother walking on at lsu

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His older brother went to Fay, younger Brother walked on for a season @ LSU

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Sorry, didn't read between the brothers. In fact, didn't know he had two.
But yeah, Brett did pretty well.

So are we gonna have any more commits during the season?

I'd expect the ole miss and LSU games to have some solid visitors.