Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema addressed the media via teleconference today. Special thanks to Tom Murphy.
Bielema hit on a few recruiting topics.
LB Martrell Spaight will likely have to wait until June to enroll because of having to take an additional class. Spaight has said he has to take a math class to meet SEC requirements.
Comments on the following junior college signees.
OL Johnathan McClure, 6-4, 305 of Butler C.C.
"Johnathan McClure was a current commitment that re-established once we got here. He’s an offensive lineman out of butler. Again, a really good story that I think really speaks volumes about him. A two-time All American, which is really unusual as a JC player. We’ll be able to plug him in at guard or center.”
S Tiquention Coleman, 5-10,194, 4.4 of Georgia Military College.
"TQ is a young man that comes to us from Georgia Military. He was coming into us at Wisconsin. When I left there, I really told myself and told my staff back there that I wasn’t going to reach out to any players unless they reached out to me. TQ sent me a pretty detailed message. I waited a couple of days, let him think about it, then I called him back. He expressed a very strong interest in coming to visit. When I got here, I realized there was a need for safeties. So I’m very excited about him. I couldn’t be more excited about the caliber of person/player combination. It’s just awesome."
LB Myke Tavarres, 6-2 1/2, 215, 4.42 of Weed, (Calif.) College of the Siskiyous
"Myke Tavarres, outside linebacker, can run like the wind. I went and saw him the last couple of days in recruiting. I went and saw him at his junior college and I flew to Portland to see his family. He chose us there on the last day. I didn’t know until I called him that Wednesday morning. Where he was going and excited to have him as a Hog."
CB Carroll Washington, 5-11, 180, 4.4 Salinas, (Calif.) Hartnell College
"Carroll Washington, the neat thing with him, he’s from Baltimore and went to a junior college out in California. He’s obviously connected to one of our players here. Really, when I was watching film of him was amazed with his athletic ability. He’s got hands the size of a bear. He’s got huge hands. Great ball skills and I’m excited to get him in the program."
LB Martrell Spaight, 6-01/2, 220, 4.5 of Coffeyville C.C.
"Martrell Spaight was a whirlwind recruiting process. Didn’t really find out about him until the last week. Contacted him on the phone and I had a nice conversation with him. I flew over to Little Rock the last night of live recruiting. Flew in there, sat down and visited with his mom and dad as well as his grandma, grandpa. Just a neat kid. And I said all along anybody from Arkansas that can help us win an SEC championship, we need to stay in state and keep him. And that’s what he’s doing. Player of the Year in the state, All-Conference, just everything we wanted."
Arkansas has five signees and 10 commitments on board.
"When I walked in there was a certain commitment list, some strong, some weak, and some in between. One thing we do know now is we have five junior college players. Four of the five will be joining us in January. That takes us down to 20 scholarships. we'll sign a full complement of 25. There may be a few more JC prospects. There's a couple of people that have reached out to us with transfer opportunities. As we run through it I'll kind of work our roster, massage it here in the next 10 days."
"Coach (Jim) Chaney and Coach (Sam) Pittman have really been scouring our board, watching practice film from a year ago, watching playing film from a year ago, get a good feel for what we need moving forward on offense, defense. That's what we'll do for a large majority of our time tomorrow with Coach (Chris) Ash and Coach (Charlie) Partridge. We'll kind of marry those things together right before we go out in January, and we're going to get the best players that can come here to Arkansas and make us what we are."
Arkansas will sign 25 and not able to count back to last year's class.
"That's something they really haven't tracked as well as maybe some other places here in the past. We wanted to make sure that it was looked at intensely as we can, but there doesn't seem to be any opportunities to do that moving forward. So the 25 that we have will obviously be the maximum we can get involved with."