QB commit Noland ready to shine

Greenwood quarterback Connor Noland runs during the Class 6A Championship Game against Russellville on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

Arkansas quarterback commit Connor Noland will finally take the stage all by himself Friday night when Greenwood hosts Fort Smith Northside in the season opener.

Noland (6-foot-2, 195 pounds) split snaps with upperclassman Luke Hales the past two seasons but still managed to pass for nearly 3,000 yards, run for almost 1,000 yards and accounted for 37 touchdowns.

Greenwood coach Rick Jones, whose program has won 10 conference championships since 2004 and has seven state championships, knows that Noland is eager to run the show himself this season.

“He is looking forward to it,” Jones said. “It’s not much fun to split time when you are raring to go. I think he is enjoying it and he is getting plenty of reps this year. He’s put on 15 pounds and is ready to handle it himself.”

Jones expects to see the best of Noland, who is also a Razorback baseball pledge as a pitcher.

“I think he is just really confident in his abilities,” Jones said. “He always was, but he just understands things better. You can look at it a lot of different ways, but he has taken over half the snaps the last two years and from week five on last year he was basically the starter.

“He has had a lot of reps that counted, played in two state championship games and with all the stuff he does with baseball, these showcases and stuff like that, I don’t think the big stage fazes him at all.”

Jones said Noland has also worked hard in other aspects, particularly leadership and his knowledge of the Greenwood offensive system.

“He also has mentality of going out one day at a time and trying to improve,” Jones said. “He is comfortable in his skin, he is comfortable with his teammates, he is comfortable with the offense and understands it better. It is his third year of doing it and we are always just looking for ways to improve it and get better as an offense.”

Jones compared his quarterback to former Minnesota Viking quarterback Fran Tarkenton, one of the NFL’s first quarterbacks who used his athleticism to buy time in the pocket.

“(Noland’s) arm is really underrated,” Jones said. “He can hose it with anybody I have seen, throw it as well as anybody I have ever seen, but he can also make people miss and scramble around. He has a little bit of Fran Tarkenton in him for the older folks.

“I tell the kids that and they look at me like I had said their grandmother’s name. They have no clue who that is. But while he is not 6-4 or 6-5, he is able to keep a play alive like Fran Tarkenton did and better than guys that size and I think that is big. We just need to keep him upright and he’ll do big things.”

Noland was the first of the current 12 commits in Arkansas’ 2018 recruiting class and has done his best to add to the class since he committed on June 20, 2016.

“That is typical,” Jones said. “He is a team player and he obviously wants great players to play with. That’s good for everybody and I just can’t say enough about him. He is a hard worker and the leader of the the team.”

Jones loves the fact that Noland is a two-sport standout and references the fact that a vast majority of the players in the 2017 NFL draft were multi-sport athletes.

“We like our kids to play a lot of sports,” Jones said. “The main thing is you have to concentrate on football when it is football season and whatever sport you play next, then you have to concentrate on that sport. We have kids that have decided to concentrate on one sport and I have yet to see a kid thrive in that environment because there is something about being on a schedule, something about structure that is important to a teenage boy.

“I think it helps Connor, who is a great kid and a busy kid with academics, football and baseball. He is running around at a pretty good clip. He doesn’t have a lot of time to be bored, that’s for sure. I think that is a good thing.”

Dudley Dawson is the recruiting editor for Hawgs Illustratedmagazines.