FAYETTEVILLE - Bret Bielema expects junior college transfers to impact this 2013 Razorbacks football team like no other Arkansas team for which he will ever recruit.
Juco players had better not in the future require this projected impact for 2013, Bielema believes, or it means he and his staff haven’t recruited for sufficient depth long term.
“I hope less and less every year,” Arkansas’ first-year coach said of relying on juco transfers. “You feel if you can hit on the front end you would rather have that.”
The “front end,” of course, means signing graduating high school seniors and maybe cherry-picking out of the junior college ranks for a transfer or two aimed at a specific need or simply sporting talent too promising to ignore.
Bielema inherited abounding needs with a big senior class graduating from a team that went 4-8 in 2012 under interim coach John L. Smith after 10-3 and 11-2 seasons in 2010 and 2011 under Bobby Petrino.
So Bielema’s staff signed five junior college transfers: safety Tiquention Coleman, Georgia Military; cornerback Carroll Washington, Hartnell (Calif.) Community College, offensive lineman Jonathan McClure, Butler (Kan.) Community College; and linebackers Myke Tavarres, College of the Siskiyous (Calif.) and Martrell Spaight, Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College.
Spaight, a North Little Rock native, still has to complete academics at Coffeyville and can’t officially practice at Arkansas until the August preseason.
Bielema harbors hope for immediate help from him nonetheless.
“Martrell Spaight is a linebacker we are very excited to get on campus,” Bielema said.
Coleman, Washington, McClure and Tavarres are fall semester junior college grads enrolled in January at the UA. They endured the winter off season conditioning program and participate in the spring practices that began with three workouts last week and resume March 26 after this week’s UA spring break.
Coleman is the one Bielema knows best. The former Wisconsin coach recruited him to commit to Wisconsin before becoming Arkansas’ coach last December.
Coleman merited Bielema’s praise even before spring drills began.
“If there is one junior college kid that is drawing everyone’s attention at this point it is Tiquention Coleman,” Bielema said during the February conditioning drills. “He is a kid that has never been beaten in any drill yet. He is doing everything right and is putting himself in great position to have success.”
After last week’s three practices, Bielema said “TQ is probably our hardest working DB out there.”
Coleman and Washington both run with the second unit, Bielema said.
Bielema called Tavarres “by far the most athletic linebacker. He’s just raw. Randy Shannon (the linebackers coach and former Miami head coach) has done a great job bringing him along.”
McClure and Washington carry more weight with Bielema because one has lost weight and one has gained weight.
“I would say McClure has exceeded our expectations,” Bielema said. “He’s lost 10 pounds and looks really positive. Carroll Washington, you can see flashes out there. He’s up 15 pounds, but the bad news is he was only 164 when we signed him so he’s just getting into the range of a physical college player.”
Sports, Pages 18 on 03/18/2013