RECRUITING THURSDAY: Davenport says Burks could be Hogs’ best ever
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette recruiting editor Richard Davenport on Morning Rush with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft on unlimited upside of Warren’s Treylon Burks at receiver.
Franks, Boyd, Cunningham named to watch list for ’21 Senior Bowl
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas quarterback Feleipe Franks, running back Rakeem Boyd and offensive lineman Myron Cunningham were named to the 2021 Reese’s Senior Bowl Top 250 watch list Thursday in a press release.
Players must be a senior or fourth-year junior to be eligible for the Reese’s Senior Bowl, which is the nation’s most prestigious college all-star game and has been played annually since 1950.
Franks will be playing his first season in Fayetteville as a graduate transfer after a successful three-year run at Florida, where he played in 28 games and made 25 starts, registering 4,593 passing yards with 37 touchdowns to 17 interceptions and a 59.1% completion percentage (354-for-599).
On the ground, the Crawfordsville, Florida, product ran for 438 yards and eight scores.
Last season, Franks started the first three games of the season but missed the remainder of the campaign due to an injury.
In his last healthy season as a redshirt sophomore in 2018, he started all 13 games guiding the Gators to a 10-3 record and a No. 6 final ranking in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll throwing for 2,457 yards and 24 touchdowns.
Leading the Gators to a 41-15 thrashing of No. 7 Michigan in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, he earned Offensive MVP honors racking up 173 passing yards (13-for-23) and one touchdown, while rushing for 74 yards and a score.
Franks is also on the watch list for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award.
Boyd led the team in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns in 2018 and 2019, totaling 1,867 career rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in his first two seasons at Arkansas.
As a junior, he ran for 1,133 yards and eight scores, while rushing for over 100 yards in five games.
Boyd ranked fourth in the SEC and 27th nationally averaging 94.4 yards per game; in addition, Boyd’s 6.4 yards per carry ranked ninth in the conference.
On just eight carries, he rushed for a career-best 185 yards against Western Kentucky, averaging 23.1 yards per attempt, including two touchdown runs of 76 and 86 yards with the latter being a career-long.
As a sophomore in 2018, Boyd ranked 10th in the SEC running for 6.0 yards per carry and 13th among league-leaders totaling 734 rushing yards.
Both the Maxwell and Doak Walker Awards tabbed Boyd to their respective watch lists before the 2020 season.
Appearing in 11 games and making 10 starts predominately at left tackle and right guard, Cunningham proved to be a durable offensive lineman in his first season last year, playing every snap of the game on eight occasions.
Cunningham excelled in pass protection and only surrendered one sack on 383 pass blocking plays. Prior to arriving in Fayetteville, Cunningham played two seasons at Iowa Western Community College, where he was a 2018 NJCAA First-Team All-American.
The Reese’s Senior Bowl has had 93 total players selected in the last two NFL Drafts, with 40 selected in the first three rounds, including 10 first-round picks in 2019.
Next year’s game will shift venues to the brand-new Hancock Whitney Stadium on the University of South Alabama’s campus in Mobile, Alabama, after being played at Ladd-Peebles Stadium since 1951.
One thing that differentiates the Reese’s Senior Bowl from other all-star games is the participation of two full NFL coaching staffs.
Last year, the two teams were coached by the Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals staffs and there were over 900 credentialed NFL personnel in Mobile for game week.
Information from Arkansas Communications is included in this story.
ADG’s Murphy on observations from Hogs’ second day of fall camp Wednesday
It was the first time the media got to see Arkansas on the practice field since last November and Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette gave his observations to Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft on ESPN Arkansas.
After seeing one practice difference clear with Pittman running show
For a media starving to see football players wearing just helmets there wasn’t any pad-popping, drive blocking defenders or tackling going on the practice field Wednesday.
There was Sam Pittman (finally!) in charge of coaching a Razorbacks football team on a practice field doing more than jumping up and down.
Even from watching a single practice and how Pittman moved from one position group to another you get the idea what we’ve been hearing from players privately and in public interviews the last several months.
One player after another has told us “we’ve got his back,” referring to Pittman.
The difference was stark. Pittman walked with a quiet confidence and you would never know the man hadn’t even coached a real practice until this week, much less never even coached a game as a head coach.
The last coach looked like he couldn’t figure out what direction to go. Before that it was hard to tell with all the waddling around the field.
“Whenever he sees guys not upholding to the standard, he’s the first one to call someone out, kind of get that juice flowing,”junior linebacker Bumper Pool said Monday, “and I think that’s big.”
Players tend to listen and respond. That’s what we’ve heard about Pittman for years, saw for a few years when he was offensive line coach from 2013-15 and witnessed on the highest stage of college football at Georgia the last few years.
“They push us to limits this team didn’t know it could go to,” senior running back Rakeem Boyd said Monday. “That’s what I love about Pittman because if you’re jogging and not moving he doesn’t care who you are. It’s ‘Let’s go!'”
It’s a different energy level. At least in the only viewing we’ve had it seemed to be consistent and not the type that comes and goes quickly doing more harm than good.
Frank Broyles used to preach about that a lot.
“Pittman keeps everybody’s energy amped up around here,” Boyd said. “It’s a positive environment. We’ve been working really hard for the man. He’s doing his job.”
That’s what we’ve heard since Pittman first got the job. He spends more time talking about making the players here better than treading water until he could find enough players to figure out how to win a league game.
Pittman is working to win an SEC game his first season, in no small part because he hasn’t really got a choice with only league teams on the schedule.
The players aren’t making bold claims.
Just what appears to be a quiet confidence.
“Whatever he puts up ahead of us we go kill it and knock it out no matter if we’re dead tired and don’t want to do it,” Boyd said of Pittman. “We still get it done. It doesn’t matter how hard the task is.”
For fans desperate for any kind of success that could be a positive tone.
At least they’re hoping so.
Sights, sounds from Razorbacks’ fall practice, Day 2, on Wednesday afternoon
Here is video from the second day of fall practice as the Hogs began preparations to open against Georgia on Sept. 26 at Razorback Stadium.
Brown on defense making some plays, too, in Arkansas’ practices Wednesday
Hogs defensive back Montaric Brown talked with the media after workouts after wide receiver Mike Woods … and the defense did some good things, too.
Woods on offense scoring three touchdowns in Wednesday’s practices
Arkansas wide receiver Mike Woods talked with the media after the offense hit three scoring plays in practice as team continues in shells and no pads.
King on keeping shortened schedule once we get past this short year
Nashville Sports Radio’s Bill King on Halftime about the possibility of keeping all-conference-only seasons with Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis on ESPN Arkansas.
