FAYETTEVILLE — Hjlate Froholdt might have the best story on Arkansas’ football team.
The Danish-born junior left guard came to the Razorbacks as a defensive tackle with no experience on the offensive line. Now, he’s likely to finish his time in the Ozarks as a three-year starter.
But the twist to Froholdt’s story is that Arkansas got perhaps its best special teams player because of him. Reid Miller’s story is pretty good, too.
Head coach Bret Bielema fell in love with Miller on a recruiting trip to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., to watch Froholdt.
Bielema and line coach Rory Segrest kept noticing Miller make big plays on special teams and at safety for the Ascenders.
So when Bielema offered Miller a chance to be a preferred walk-on with the Razorbacks, it was a quick sell. It wasn’t much different than when IMG defensive coordinator Bob Sturdivant called Miller out of the blue to recruit the Hollidaysburg, Pa., running back/safety as a high school junior.
“I knew Hjalte had studied Arkansas and a lot of other schools across the country,” Miller said. “If he liked Arkansas, I knew it was going to be a good place for me, too. I came here and really knew nothing about it, but it’s been great.”
Froholdt and Miller, both true juniors at Arkansas, grew tight at IMG. They still are best friends at Arkansas.
“When I first met him, I could see he was goal-oriented, like me,” Froholdt said. “He didn’t stay out late. He concentrated on his studies. He helped me with that because it was how I wanted to be, too.
“We are very different in size, but we are similar in likes. We value the same things. He’s about hard work and honesty. He doesn’t give up. I think he was in the 99th percentile on his SAT score. Don’t tell him that I said this, but he’s about the smartest person I know.”
Side by side, they are an incredible contrast. Froholdt is 6-5, 320 pounds; Miller is 5-9, 201.
“He may not be 5-9,” Froholdt said. “But he plays a lot bigger. He works his butt off in the weight room. Mostly, he wears shirts that are too big so you can’t see his muscles, but he’s got them. Mostly, he’s wearing 2XL shirts.”
Froholdt said Miller didn’t complain about not having a scholarship when he got to school.
“Some dudes expect stuff from certain situations, but not Reid,” Froholdt said. “He takes whatever opportunity is given and makes the most of it, just works.
“I have never heard one person say a bad word about Reid, ever.”
That might be a bad thing if Froholdt heard it. He’s that close to Miller.
Their parents are just as close, planning trips together to watch their sons play at Arkansas. They stay at the same hotel and meet for dinner the night before games.
“We are close,” said Bob Miller, Reid’s father. “I text or phone Hans each week. I can tell you that 90 seconds on the phone is a $75 charge on my bill. But that’s what friends are for.”
That’s exactly how Reid said his father would tell it.
“They are close,” Reid said. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
Reid hasn’t been to Denmark, but he’s sure he’d like it.
“I sure love Arkansas,” he said. “ It’s an awful lot like what home looks like in Central PA.
“I grew up in a tiny place, population 4,500. There are places just like it in this part of Arkansas.”
Hollidaysburg is about 45 minutes south of State College, Pa., where Penn State football is king. That’s where Miller thought he’d play football, maybe as a walk-on, just like he started out at Arkansas.
“I was being recruited by Bill O’Brien,” he said. “He was head coach and my family always had season tickets. They were short on numbers at that time, but then they had a coaching change and when James Franklin became coach, I didn’t hear from them anymore.”
Miller didn’t have any college plans when IMG entered the picture just before Christmas of his junior year. He’d just turned 16. That’s not exactly when Bob Miller, his dad, thought he was ready to leave home.
“I got an email out of the blue from IMG,” Reid said. “It was as generic as it could be. I disregarded it.”
A few days later came a phone call from Bob Sturdivant, the IMG defensive coordinator. Bob Miller recalls that night.
“Reid’s sitting on a stool in the kitchen, talking on the phone,” Bob Miller said. “I asked who is that? Just matter of factly, he said, ‘Coach Sturdivant from IMG.’ I had no clue. What is this?
“This all happened in a 14-day period. I told Reid, ‘You have him call your dad.’ We go from getting a phone call in mid-December to Reid enrolling at IMG in January.”
It wasn’t an easy sell for Reid. Dad thought Hollidaysburg, where Reid was a do-it-all player was just fine. He’d played catcher for the baseball team and point guard in basketball. Why head to Florida?
“No, it didn’t exactly go smoothly,” Bob Miller said. “The first thing we learned about IMG was that the cost was $75,000. I told him there was no way. First, I didn’t think he was ready.”
Reid, who later found out there were scholarships to reduce that fee, had the perfect comeback.
“He told me that he didn’t want to be 40 and thinking back to why I didn’t try it,” Bob Miller said. “I thought, ‘Maybe Reid is ready and maybe it’s me that’s not ready.’ So we went down there and did the research.”
It went great. Despite arriving at IMG on crutches after surgery to fix a broken toe sustained during football season, Miller quickly earned a spot on special teams, then a starting spot at safety. He finished as the team MVP, earning the top honor given by coaches.
“They call it the Ascender Award,” Bob Miller said. “So IMG took damaged goods — a kid with a broken toe — and he ended up winning the MVP award. They had Deondre Francois, who would go to Florida State, and the roster was full of top Division I players.”
Miller did the same thing as Froholdt — enroll at mid-term at Arkansas. He came as a preferred walk-on, then earned a scholarship after his first season.
“I really thought I’d get a scholarship offer somewhere,” Reid said. “But it was just a bunch of preferred walk-on calls, mainly Division I-AA schools like Wofford and Tennessee-Martin. If I was going to walk on, why not at Arkansas? And, as I learned from Hjalte, it was a great fit academically, a great school for business.
“I was always going to play somewhere. I grew up watching Penn State and that made me want to play college football. I just never knew anything about SEC football.”
It’s his lack of height that turned off the college recruiters. He’s got speed, but at 5-9, there were no offers. He’s a heavy lifter, but he’s never going to be more than his current roster weight of 201.
“I figured out about special teams at IMG,” he said. “They made it a big deal and I got into it. It’s a lot of fun. The kickoff units are great.”
Generally, Miller finds the ball on kickoff coverage. He’s going to find the top opposing special teams tackler on kickoff return. It was interesting to watch Miller walk off the field with Alabama’s Bo Scarbrough after plenty of special teams collisions in Tuscaloosa two weeks ago. They were teammates at IMG.
“It’s hard to describe kickoffs,” Reid said. “I’d say maybe it’s like organized chaos. It all happens pretty fast. You keep your head on a swivel.
“I really do look forward to any way I can help the team. To play on special teams is so much fun. It’s literally one-third of the game and I’m in on everything.”
Miller has earned the trust of the UA placekickers and is the holder on placements. He was the pick by both Cole Hedlund and Connor Limpert last spring. It doesn’t matter that one kicks with the right foot, the other with the left.
“It is different,” Miller said. “You catch with the top hand, so it’s opposite. It’s like being a switch hitter in baseball. But I can do it. I learned to hold at IMG. You just need good hands. We were in special teams meetings last year and I said I could hold.”
Coaches trust Miller on defense, too. He’s the backup to strong safety Santos Ramirez, although the top three safeties rotate ahead of Miller.
“Of course, you want to play on defense and be in the normal flow of the game,” he said. “I’ve gotten in on some snaps. But if you told me I’d never start as a defensive back in a game, I’d be fine with what I’m doing now. I love special teams.”
Reid Miller always plays to the whistle and he doesn’t take plays off. His father knows that all too well.
“I may not see everything that happens on a play, but I see him all the way down the field on kickoffs,” Bob Miller said. “I saw him hurt his shoulder on the last extra point against Florida A&M. It was 42-6 and I saw him try to block their extra point. He came flying in and the tackle caught him. It dislocated his shoulder. He went into the tent and they slid it back.”
Later that night, dad texted son with some advice.
“I told him from now on if it’s 42-6, just go through the motion on the extra point,” Bob Miller said. “I still have his reply. He sends back, ‘That’s what mediocre people say. I’m not mediocre.’”
No one will say that about Miller at Arkansas. Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads believes in Miller.
“He knows our scheme and is so smart,” Rhoads said. “What he brings is attitude and hard work. He plays with determination and he’s going to find a way to contribute to the team.
“Reid Miller and Ryder Lucas are the same way. They get the highest number of reps on our special teams. They embrace that role.
“I do know Reid is prepared to play on defense. When he is in the game, his grades are at a high level. He’s ready to play. He plays at a high level on our special teams.”
The grades are always good for Miller. He’s going to graduate with a degree in business economics in barely over three years, despite not attending the first year of summer school.
“I was a walk-on that first year, so I wasn’t on scholarship,” he said. “So I went home. But I’ll graduate in May ahead of my senior year.”
The plan might include staying in Northwest Arkansas. His specialty is in supply chain logistics. That fits with several Wal-Mart vendors. He’s an honor student.
“I expect that he will stay there,” Bob Miller said. “He loves Arkansas. We do, too. He says it reminds him of our part of Pennsylvania and I see that. We come to all of the games and it’s a great place.”
The Millers haven’t missed a game in the last two years and made all of the trips to IMG, too.
“It was all over the country,” Bob Miller said. “It was during those trips to IMG that I started texting the Froholdts. I’d give them updates by text during the game.”
Reid said he became close to Hjalte soon after arriving at IMG.
“We hit it off,” Reid said. “We gravitated to each other because we both believed in hard work. The strength coach provided some optional lifting time in those first weeks when we got there and we were the only two who came. So we worked out together. It’s always been like that. We bonded.
“That’s when I realized what Hjalte was all about, smart and hard working. What he’s been able to do here – convert from defense to offense – is a testament to his hard work. We all know that. He’s always studying tape.”
Froholdt said the IMG strength coach referred to them as “my two meatheads” because we were always there for any workout he’d offer. There were some voluntary workouts at the start where it was just me and Reid, but we recruited a lot of others to join us. I think there were about 15 for the voluntary workouts after they saw our development.”
Four years with someone will allow you to learn a lot. Miller has even learned a little bit of Froholdt’s native language.
“I picked up some,” Reid said, then dropped a little Danish into the interview.
Asked for translation, Reid said, “I love you.”
That’s the last thing Froholdt says before he hangs up on a phone call to his parents.
“I heard it so many times,” Miller said. “So if Hjalte is really having a bad day, I tell him that in his language and he’s going to smile. Like I said, the world isn’t as big as you think.”
Froholdt said, “That’s right, small world. I think he listened in and learned a few things, probably the first thing I said and the last thing I said. What you know is that anything Reid is going to say is genuine. He does help make sure I don’t have a bad day.”
It’s hard to imagine Reid Miller having a bad day. Bob Miller doesn’t have any when he thinks about his son’s path to Arkansas.
“I’d like to tell you this, but I may not get it out because I’m going to get emotional,” Bob Miller said, pausing for just a few seconds. “My son inspires me every day.”