FAYETTEVILLE — As he gets ready to head into spring practice on Tuesday, Arkansas head football coach Bret Bielema is happy with his program’s present and future recruiting.
The Razorbacks have a quartet of four-star class of 2018 commitments so far - Greenwood quarterback Connor Noland (6-2, 180), Lucas, Texas, Lovejoy linebacker Bumper Pool (6-2, 220), tight end Luke Ford (6-6, 250) of Cartersville, Ill., and recent cornerback addition Byron Hanspard, Jr., (6-1, 188) of Desoto, Texas.
“Obviously I can’t talk specifics, but we have not received a commitment from anyone that hasn’t been the number one person on our board at their position since we started in January,” Bielema said Monday afternoon. “It is going as solid as solid gets.
“Obviously we have to keep them going in the right direction, but this is probably the best - and I haven’t seen our coaches work on the field - but this is best recruiting staff that I have ever had. They are very diligent, they understand it. My two new guys, even though they came out of the NFL, are very tech savvy and very into recruiting. They have got great personalities and my old staff knows what the expectation level is.”
Bielema credited recruiting coordinator E.K. Franks with helping his program stay on top of things.
“E.K. has done a nice job,” Bielema said. “We are doing a lot more things with FaceTime. We used to just send out a letter when we offered a kid, but now we set up a time and our whole staff will sit there and have a conversation with him like he is sitting in the same room.
“The recruiting world is allowing us to push the envelope further and further and for us at Arkansas we need to do that.”
Arkansas signed 24 players in the 2017 class and is expected to have Clemson graduate transfer Scott Pagano (6-3, 295) in for a visit April 7-9.
Pagano, a Hawaii native who would be immediately eligible, has visited Notre Dame and is slated to visit Oklahoma this weekend, Texas April 14-16 and Oregon April 28-30.
The Razorbacks also brought in three blue shirts that will count against the 2018 class numbers.
“We are going to have a really small class,” Bielema said. “You guys that really follow it know that this is small class compared to last year’s. We still have an opportunity for one more in last year’s class, but this year’s will include guys that we are going to sign forward as well as guys that are high on our list.”
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There were four new walk ons listed on the 2017 spring roster, including a pair of former Fayetteville High stars in sophomore wide receiver Tyson Morris (6-1, 201) and redshirt freshman kicker Jon Fagg.
Morris, whose father is former Razorback basketball star Isaiah “Butch” Morris, transferred in from Division II Central Oklahoma.
Fagg, whose father is UA senior associate athletic director Jon Fagg, was 58-of-63 on PATs and 9 of 10 field goals as a senior in 2015.
The other two are sophomore linebackers in Terrell Collins (6-0, 235) of St. Louis, Mo., Hazelwood Central by way of Iowa Western Community College and former Bryant player Brenden Young (6-1, 202), who was at Ouachita.