FAYETTEVILLE — Regardless of how successful a signing day goes for Arkansas, you can seemingly always count on a small but very vocal segment of the Razorback fan base to concentrate on what didn’t happen instead of what did.
It was no different on Wednesday as the Arkansas staff landed the national letter-of-intents of 20 prospects, 10 on the offensive side of the ball and 10 on the defensive side. It was the first day of the second-ever early signing period.
The newest Razorbacks are part of a recruiting class that is ranked 13th by Rivals, 18th by ESPN and 19th by 24/7 and one that Razorback head coach Chad Morris lauded with high praise.
“We got a lot better today as a football team and as a program,” Morris said. “We addressed a lot of needs that needed to be addressed. We’re not done. We’ve got a lot of work left but this was definitely a start in this early signing period as we signed 20 new members.”
Arkansas coaches got a lot work done early with getting prospects on campus and it paid off.
“When you are able to come in and sign 10 offensive players, immediate impact players, and 10 immediate impact defensive players it just says a lot about getting guys on campus and that’s what the challenge was to our staff since last January,” Morris said. “Just get them on campus. If we can get them here, we have a chance because we’ve got so much to sell, the University has so much to offer, the state has so much to offer and if you just get here on campus, we’ll show you. And that’s what we did.”
The early signing class included the late flips of a pair of four-star prospects in West Jefferson, La., defensive back Greg Brooks (5-10, 180) and Tulsa Union offensive lineman Rickey Stromberg (6-3, 320).
Brooks had taken an official visit to Arkansas in November and became a private pledge at that point, but waited until a Wednesday 1 p.m. signing ceremony at his school to share that with everyone.
He is one of eight early enrollees that will be on campus in January.
“Recruiting is never ending,” Morris said. “ We've been talking to Greg for quite some time. The relationships we've had and trying to build that relationship to be strong. Just the needs. I think he saw the needs that would impact him to come here. The opportunity to play. Just a fabulous football player.”
Stromberg (6-3, 280), a four-star prospect per 24/7 who lost 40 pounds this year, flipped from Tulsa to Arkansas on Tuesday, a day after getting an offer from the Razorback staff.
“We had him (Stromberg) on campus a year ago and he just had a total transformation of his body,” Morris said. “And man let me just tell you, this guy everywhere I went was mentioned. Every coach I talked to in the state of Oklahoma and in the Tulsa area mentioned, ‘Coach, I’m just telling you this is the guy.’”
But the fact that seven commitments didn’t ink during the early signing period for various reasons has some flipping out.
I get it.
This fan base has watched its program lose 20 of its last 26 games and thus there is a reason to have a sense of foreboding even when things are seemingly going good.
Nothing less than signing someone for all 29 spots available spots, four of which count back to 2018, would have made some happy or feel safe that the class will live up to its hype.
ESPN notes that 65 percent of the overall signees inked their national letters-of-intent during the first early signing period last year and projected it to be 70 percent this year.
The two highest rated players in the Arkansas class, who also double as the state’s two highest-rated prospects, both decided to wait for different reasons, but both are most assuredly Razorbacks.
Pulaski Academy tight end Hudson Henry, the nation’s best prospect and a top 54 player nationally per ESPN, wants to wait and sign with teammates on national signing day of Feb. 7.
Warren wide receiver Treylon Burks (6-3, 210), 84th nationally according to ESPN, decided to wait because his grandmother would not have been able to be on hand for his ceremony.
Defensive backs Devin Bush, Adonis Otey and Myles Brooks as well as tailback A’Montae Spivey had all previously announced their plans to sign early, but all three of those Razorback pledges ended up deciding to wait.
While the four all claim to be 100 percent to Arkansas, speculation is that the quartet is looking around for what they view as a better landing spot.
The Razorbacks also did not sign Ellenwood, Ga., Cedar Grove defensive end Dante Walker, who has some academic work to finish.
It was a pretty impressive day for a program coming off a 2-10 season.