FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema said Ricky Town's talent and his desire to keep the Razorbacks well-stocked with scholarship quarterbacks heading into 2016 were the key reasons he decided to accept the transfer quarterback.
Bielema said he was contacted last week by Town after the quarterback was given his release to transfer from Southern California. The Razorbacks announced Friday that Town had enrolled at Arkansas, and Bielema said Saturday that Town was in the process of moving from California to start classes Monday.
"One of the things that's kind of evolved since we've been here is we're getting known as a pretty good pro-style offense," Bielema said after Saturday's scrimmage. "People want to be involved in it."
Bielema said Town, who enrolled at USC in January and went through spring drills and one week of camp before leaving, indicated to him that he didn't fit in with the Trojans' offensive personnel.
Town will have to sit out the 2015 season because of NCAA transfer rules but will be in position to compete for the starting job next spring.
Bielema said he spent as much time as he could with Town and his parents Wednesday and Thursday before deciding to take on the transfer.
"In all my years of recruiting, you usually build up a pretty good relationship over months of recruiting," he said. "Really just tried to spend as much time as I could with him and his dad and his mom. Everyone was positive about him and who he was."
Bielema said the Razorbacks talked to a couple of transfer quarterbacks this summer -- one was Purdue transfer Danny Etling, who wound up at LSU -- in an effort to fill out that key spot on the offense.
"I just didn't want to go into a fall season with maybe two or three scholarship quarterbacks," Bielema said. "I don't want to jeopardize the roster. I've been down that road. I've made that mistake at Wisconsin, where we got low on numbers and really were just one play away from being disastrous.
"I don't want to leverage the livelihood of my coaches, myself and our team on not having the proper numbers there at quarterback. That's why I went with it."
Bielema said he had talks with his other quarterbacks when the other transfers made official visits, but that he didn't have time to sit down with them in advance of Town's visit. He said offensive coordinator Dan Enos did that Friday.
"Dan had a very, very live conversation with them last night about where it stood, why it stood," Bielema said. "I thought Dan had an interesting perspective. He related a story about when he was a quarterback they brought in a junior college quarterback.
"The conversation I have with those guys is going to be the same I had the last two times. We're trying to add to our depth at the quarterback position and get four eligible quarterbacks for the fall competition."
Town, a four-star recruit from Ventura, Calif., was originally an Alabama commitment before flipping to Southern Cal.
Sports on 08/23/2015