The Recruiting Guy

Herbert impresses top RB prospect's NFL father

University of Arkansas Assistant Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Ben Herbert works with the Razorbacks during practice in this file photo.

— Arkansas running back target Chase Hayden and his parents visited Fayetteville on June 23 and after the visit Hayden said the Hogs were his favorite.

Hayden (5-foot-11, 185 lbs., 4.47 seconds in the 40-yard dash) of Collierville (Tenn.) St. George's Independent School, has scholarship offers from Arkansas, Tennessee, Michigan, South Carolina, Missouri, Louisville, Arizona and others.

His father, Aaron Hayden, was a running back at Tennessee from 1992-94 before playing four seasons in the NFL. He came away impressed with several parts of the trip, including strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert.

“I was very impressed with the strength coach,” Hayden said. “I’m hard on running back coaches and strength coaches and he blew me away.”

The meeting with Herbert wasn’t like most others Hayden has encountered.

“We sat down and most of the times these guys give you these long drawn out presentations and he sat us down and said, ‘What questions do you have?'” Hayden said. “So I started hitting him with, ‘What do you do within strength development? What do you do for explosiveness? What do you do for agility?’ And he just went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.”

When the subject of agility was discussed, Herbert did a hands-on presentation.

“He said, 'Chase get on the ground,' and he pulled out some bands with spikes on it and he rubbed him out and then he had him do a few stretches and then he had him……he knows his stuff,” Hayden said. “When you’ve been a player, you know who knows their stuff and you know who’s kind of running the program. I was very, very impressed with him.”

Because of his intensity, Herbert is known to sweat while talking to recruits and their families.

“You could tell he’s all in,” Hayden said. “He was sweating up a storm, but it didn’t bother him. He just wiped it off and kept going.“