FAYETTEVILLE — The original optimism over Marcus Monk’s recovery from a knee injury was tempered substantially Monday as Arkansas’ star receiver underwent arthroscopic surgery that will sideline him at least a month.

Monk had a small tear in the meniscus repaired and had pieces of articular cartilage removed in his right knee, Razorbacks trainer Dean Weber said. Also, his femur’s lateral condyle, which is the rounded end of the bone, was scraped to enhance faster healing, according to Weber. The recovery time is expected to be four to six weeks.

“He will be on an aggressive rehabilitation program emphasizing early motion,” Weber said.

The good news was that there were no torn ligaments for the 6-6 preseason All-SEC choice who holds the school record with 24 career touchdown receptions.

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“It could have been a lot worse,” Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt said. “You could be talking about ligaments and you are not talking about that.

“ It’s a little bit worse than we thought, but the good news is we’ve got a chance [to get him back relatively soon ].”

In Thursday’s practice, London Crawford and Reggie Fish ran with the first team at the receiver spots, with Lucas Miller and Robert Johnson behind them.

“We’ll go with those guys and see who can move in at the level that we need,” receivers coach Alex Wood said.

Nutt said tailback Felix Jones might play some at receiver if needed.

The Razorbacks’ receiving corps has very little game production outside of Monk’s 122 career receptions for 2, 007 yards.

“We’ll miss him, and we can’t wait until he gets back,” quarterback Casey Dick said. “We’ve switched some guys around, and they’ve got to step in there and make big plays for us. They don’t have to make spectacular plays. We just need to get them the football and they’ll be fine.”

The top returning wideout minus Monk is Johnson, the senior who converted last year from quarterback and had six catches for 96 yards.

Crawford had 5 receptions for 117 yards and 2 touchdowns in 2006, while Miller and Baker had one reception each.

Crawford said playing without Monk for a month or more would feel like losing a brother.

“Great heart, big leader, go-allthe-way-out, never-quit kind of guy,” Crawford said of Monk. “To fill Monk’s shoes, it’s going to be hard for any guy who wins that spot.

“ He was a great threat for the offense. Someone’s going to have to be better than what they were. Someone’s going to have to jump that extra mile.”