FAYETTEVILLE — With rare exceptions, freshman offensive linemen arrive on campus with their coaches ready to redshirt.
Even the rookie O-linemen that don't redshirt, get activated at the last minute, with their coaches debating right up until kickoff or even pondering a couple of games into the season before playing them.
So mark Alvin Bailey as an exception.
The University of Arkansas' true freshman offensive guard from Broken Arrow, Okla. was practicing second team offensive guard two practices into the Razorbacks' preseason.
"Yeah, it came pretty quick," Bailey said. "They told me it depends how you come in and how hard you work. They were pretty happy with the way I worked over the summer and the first two days."
Of course Bailey would be hard to overlook. He stands 6-5, 325 with a 400-pound bench press and the grace of a basketball player which his father, West Helena native Alvin Bailey Sr., possessed in sufficient abundance. Bailey Sr. lettered as a walk-on with former Arkansas coach Eddie Sutton's basketball Razorbacks in 1979.
All that talent and size and Arkansas ties, too. No wonder Garrick McGee, the Arkansas quarterbacks coach and former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback recruiting the Tulsa area for Razorbacks, pounced quickly as Kansas sought to recruit Bailey.
"Alvin's size and athletic ability," McGee said, marveling. "Really good basketball player, too, and a really good kid with a great family."
A great enough family to bite their lip and let Alvin Jr. choose for himself as Kansas, Nebraska and Kansas State among others rivaled Alvin Sr.'s alma mater for Alvin Jr.'s signature.
"My dad stepped out of the college recruiting process," Alvin Jr. said. "He said he already had his college experience and he wanted me to choose for myself. He didn't try to persuade me."
It wasn't necessary.
"I took some visits to other schools," Alvin Jr. said, "but once Arkansas came, that's where I wanted."
McGee advised he was recruiting a lineman readymade for the varsity.
"We thought he had the strength to come in and protect himself," McGee said. "A lot of times with an offensive lineman you sign him saying, 'We've got to put 20 pounds on him.' Alvin was a guy we actually needed to drop some weight. He was already big and strong enough."
And smart enough. The business major has the aptitude for the game, say McGee and offensive line coach Mike Summers. And he's also smart enough to seek out players who know the ropes. Like Mitch Petrus, the fifth-year senior starting at the guard Bailey backs up.
"When I first came up here, I had some problems with my stance and he helped me out a lot," Bailey said. "He knows the techniques."
Veteran coach Summers loves coaching a rookie humble enough to learn but confident enough to throw his 325 pounds of weight around. The Arkansas coaches had heard of Bailey benching 400 plus at Broken Arrow but had it confirmed by the Arkansas strength staff in the weight room at the UA's Walker Pavilion earlier this summer.
"I'm encouraged with the way Alvin came into camp," Summers said. "He had a really good bench press test. He appears to be physically strong and learns really well. I'm encouraged. He's a good player to have on that second team right now."
So good he's apt to be backing Petrus in Arkansas' Sept. 5 opener against Missouri State, even as head coach Bobby Petrino ponders the what-if of Bailey as a fifth-year senior in 2013 if he redshirted in 2009.
"Young Alvin Bailey is going to be a great player," Petrino said. "The biggest decision on us for him is do we try and redshirt him or play him? Because he is going to be an exceptional player before it's over with."
Sports, Pages 9 on 08/31/2009