FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — For whatever reason, Arkansas will start the season Thursday night at War Memorial Stadium down a man before the team even left for Little Rock. Multiple reports Wednesday have indicated long-snapper Eli Stein has left the team.
Exactly what that means isn’t immediately known. Stein was a scholarship players who started all 12 games for the Razorbacks in 2023 but was listed with an ‘or’ beside his name alongside junior Ashton Ngo when the official depth chart was released on Monday.
“When [Max Fletcher] left, it was a strange realization I was the last person left in the room I came into as a freshman,” Stein said back on Aug. 2. “But that was kind of the thing. A lot of younger guys, leading them through the process and helping them out, so I’d love to do that as much as I can.”
Ngo (say it “No”) had already taken the long-snapper job for punting and was in contention to take over for field goals and extra points. Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman put him on scholarship earlier this week, getting the Hogs to 85 scholarship players. Now they will be down one at least until January.
“Ashton Ngo was our starter at punt-snapping anyway,”Pittman said on Wednesday. “And it was a very close battle with the short-snapping, so he was going to be that regardless of what happened and certainly will take over the short snapping as well.
“I put him on scholarship,” Pittman said. “I can’t remember what day, I think maybe Monday? Maybe Sunday? So he’s on scholarship, yes. Then we had the one, but because we’ve already started school, we don’t have another one available now. That was the one I had to use. We can’t just cut a scholarship, so that one won’t become available until January.”
The Razorbacks will play UAPB on Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. on ESPNU. The pregame show starts at 3:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on ESPN Arkansas 99.5 in Fayetteville, 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.
