Arkansas offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dan Enos likes to recruit quarterbacks who think like him.
“I’ve always been under the notion that you want to recruit them like you’re going to coach them and you want to coach like minded people,” Enos said. “I just try to be real with guys. I try to tell them exactly how I’m going to be with them when I coach them.”
Under Enos, the Hogs have featured a 3,000-yard passer and 1,300 yard-rusher his first two years in Fayetteville and in doing so Arkansas is only one of two team in the FBS to have both. He likes for quarterbacks to attend an Arkansas practice in order to get a get look at how he coaches.
“I try to encourage them to come to a practice that way they can observe me in a meeting room and then they can observe me at a practice and see me in a real environment,” Enos said. “During recruiting coaches can obviously put up a facade and kind of give you what you’re not going to see in reality and what they going to be like in a day-to-day basis. I just try to be myself.“
“Again that works with some kids, but it’s probably going to work with the kids we want, like minded guys, like our staff that like to work, like to coach, like to have energy, like to be positive and like ball. That’s a big thing I want to be around guys that love ball and love the preparation and love the competitiveness.”
Enos' recruiting territory includes his home state of Michigan and Kansas City while recruiting quarterbacks nationally.
“I try to help other guys with offensive players,” Enos said. “I think that’s a really important part of the puzzle. Barry Lunney does an outstanding job of recruiting for us inside the state and there’s a lot of good players. If there’s a good offensive player in the state I try and get with Barry help him. He has his hands full recruiting all sorts of people and the same thing with Michael Smith and the rest of the guys.”
He and Smith recruited redshirt freshman quarterback Cole Kelley out of Louisiana.
“Cole Kelley is in Michael Smith’s area so I was down in Lafayette a lot with Michael but he’s the one that found him and showed me the video and the story,” Enos said.
Every college coach has memorable recruiting trips or stories and Enos is no different. While the head coach at Central Michigan, he used all six of the NCAA allotted contacts to see a quarterback to no avail.
“I saw him six times,” Enos said. “One of the times school was out because of snow in Michigan and I got stuck I think twice driving to his house. I actually had dress pants and dress shoes and I was out pushing my car to get to the house in the subdivision he was in because it hadn’t been plowed yet. The neighbors were helping me. The best of the story was I did all of that and North Carolina offered him on the Saturday before signing day and we didn’t even get him.”