FAYETTEVILLE — Cole Hedlund is nowhere to be found on Arkansas’ depth chart heading into Saturday’s matchup with Texas A&M.
The junior opened the season as the Razorbacks’ placekicker, but missed a pair of short field goals — from 23 and 20 yards — in the 28-7 loss to TCU, leading coach Bret Bielema to indicate there would be changes in the kicking game.
Sophomore Connor Limpert is listed as the starter heading into the week, with true freshman Blake Mazza his backup. Neither have attempted a field goal or extra point in a college game, but Limpert has served as Arkansas’ kickoff man since early last year.
“We still have Tuesday and Wednesday of this week obviously and then Thursday to see where they are,” Bielema said. “Him and Mazza were almost (in a) dead heat. The only thing that Limpert has done is he’s kicked in a live-game situation, so based on where we’re at next Saturday, that’ll be the deciding factor.”
Hedlund is 14 of 24 in his career and has now lost his job after entering the season as the starter two years in a row. His first miss against TCU would’ve given Arkansas a 10-7 lead, while the second would’ve cut its deficit to 14-10 early in the fourth quarter.
Offensive coordinator Dan Enos was asked if the field-goal issues influenced his play calling in the red zone, an area the offense has struggled dating back to last year.
“I’m going to stay in my lane there a little bit, because that’s not my area,” Enos said. “I’ve got my own problems. But no, it didn’t affect the way we called the game on Saturday. Obviously we’re trying to score touchdowns.”
Placekicker isn’t the only potential special teams change.
True freshman De’Vion Warren is now listed as the backup kick returner to sophomore Deon Stewart, who lost a fumble late in the TCU game to set up the Horned Frogs’ final score. Stewart averaged 20 yards per return on a team-high 21 returns last season and is averaging 16.3 this year, but Bielema didn’t rule out putting the sophomore back deep against the Aggies.
“We had Deon Stewart kind of pegged in and I liked him in that role, but when he got rolled up, that eliminated him and kept him out of those reps,” Bielema said. “He’s another guy too that I still don’t think’s been given a full shot. There was a missed block on that play that he fumbled. Obviously we (want to) have great ball security, but someone let a guy fly through unblocked and that was the result of that game-changing fumble.”
Warren is among the fastest players on Arkansas’ roster and returned a kick 21 yards against Florida A&M. Inserting him or junior receiver Gary Cross, another player Bielema mentioned, may be a tactic to try and jump start a kick return game that has been among the worst in the nation since last season.
Last year, the Razorbacks only averaged 18.6 yards per return, which ranked last in the SEC and 111th out of 128 Division I teams. They rank last in the SEC again this year, averaging 17.5 yards so far.
“We’ve got to clean up those units overall and give our guys a better chance,” Bielema said.
The tweaks come with Arkansas languishing near or at the bottom of the SEC in a number of special teams categories, albeit with a small sample size early in the season: 10th in the SEC in punting, 11th in punt coverage, 12th in kickoff distance, 13th in field goal accuracy and last in kick returns.