Former SMU quarterback has fans’ interest, but some questions there

With SMU quarterback Ben Hicks’ announcement Wednesday he’s leaving SMU on the graduate transfer path, Arkansas fans, naturally, have started beating the drum.

Hicks was the first quarterback Chad Morris signed at SMU in the 2015 recruiting class and he ended up starting 11 games as a redshirt freshman in 2016 and every game in 2017-18, becoming the Mustangs’ career passing leader.

But Razorback fans might just want to look at the numbers a little.

In his third year starting last year, his numbers dropped off from the year before, 2017, which was Morris’ last year there.

But, maybe more importantly, it was the last year for a group of Trey Quinn, James Proche and Courtland Sutton at receiver in addition to a strong running game. That year he threw for 3,569 yards, 33 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Without those guys, Hicks’ numbers dropped off to 2,582 yards, 19 touchdowns with just seven interceptions.

Think having three quality receivers made a difference?

Sutton was a first-round pick of the Denver Broncos, Quinn has played in three games for the Washington Redskins this year and Proche was the best target for Hicks this past season.

The Hogs have some highly-touted freshmen committed to sign with them. That hasn’t happened yet, so let’s not start making projections until they sign but they should provide a major upgrade over a group that performed far below expectations last year.

It is interesting, though, Hicks would choose to leave a school where he became the career passing leader with a year of eligibility left.

“You got to make some tough decisions sometimes and this was one I felt like I needed to make,” Hicks told PonyStampede.com this week.

As I said, interesting.

Hog fans have been on a rollercoaster concerning the quarterback position since former Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant came on the market. They sweated out that decision and many were completely deflated when he chose Missouri.

Now there’s Hicks.

He’s not Bryant and the advantages he has over the current quarterbacks on campus is taking a team coached by Morris with Joe Craddock as offensive coordinator to a seven-win regular season … with a pair of NFL-caliber wide receivers and another one who may get a shot next season.

Hicks does know what Morris and Craddock expect. But we also know his numbers dropped off considerably when he lost some really good receivers at SMU.

With a week before the first signing date, the Hogs are lining up some offensive line commitments. They have a quarterback commitment, but nobody knows what KJ Jefferson will be able to do as a freshman (and anybody that thinks they do is guessing to even themselves).

As we suspected, while Arkansas is putting together a signing class that will be among the best since they started ranking recruiting, it is still the SEC.

In the 247Sports.com composite ranking of all the services, the Hogs are at No. 18 in the nation.

The naysayers among the lunatic fringe and the sociopathic internet trolls will point out that’s eighth in the league … and sixth in the SEC West.

All of that is true, but don’t read a whole lot into that.

While Alabama, Texas A&M and LSU are in the top four right now (along with Georgia), in the national rankings, five SEC teams are in the 12-20 spots.

Ignore the negatives, that’s within the numbers to be competitive. There isn’t the huge gap there has been in previous years.

Which is just one of the positives.

Remember, the Hogs still have five more players to get committed and that should make their ranking climb a little.

It will be an interesting week to start an interesting two months before the final signing day in February.

And this time the Hogs are at least in the discussion for a Top 20 finish.

Which hasn’t happened in a long, long time.