79 ° Mostly cloudy  ·  Home · Archives · Go Hogs! · Blogs · Videos · Contact Us Search: Go

Fayetteville, Ark.

logo2.gif

SPONSORS

ADVERTISEMENT



ADVERTISEMENT



ADVERTISEMENT

Location: WholeHogSports > Story     |     TAGGED: football (3) , SEC (2)

UA FOOTBALL : Petrino's coaching staff highlighted by recruiting experience in Texas

Published: Saturday, January 05, 2008 PRINT E-MAIL

Some Arkansas, some Louisville, some NFL, some SEC and a whole lot of recruiting experience in Texas and the Southeast come together in the Razorback football staff new Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino announced Friday.

A lot of the names have been revealed already as Petrino officially named Ellis Johnson, the Mississippi State defensive coordinator who resigned last week with an announcement he was Arkansas bound, the Razorbacks’ defensive coordinator.

Johnson is joined by newcomers Kirk Botkin, an old Arkansas hand actually as the Razorbacks’ first All-SEC player as a tight end in 1993, Reggie Johnson, Garrick McGee, Mike Summers, Lorenzo Ward, administrators Dean Campbell and Mark Robinson, strength coach Jason Veltcamp and graduate assistant Chip Long.

All but Dennis Johnson, Robinson and Long have previously been reported to be or about to be on Petrino’s staff.

ADVERTISEMENT

Petrino previously announced the hiring of his brother, offensive coordinator Paul Petrino who had assisted Bobby Petrino both at the University of Louisville and in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons. Bobby Petrino also previously announced that assistant coaches Bobby Allen and Tim Horton and graduate assistant coach Courtney Sanders would be retained from the staff of former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt.

“ I’m confident about the staff we have assembled for the University of Arkansas, ” Petrino said Friday in a press release issued through the Arkansas sports information department. “ These coaches have a wealth of experience at the highest levels of collegiate athletics and in the professional ranks. I’m confident they will work tirelessly to mold our program and that they will represent the Razorbacks in a first-class fashion. ”

In the meantime, Reggie Herring, Arkansas’ defensive coordinator for Houston Nutt from 2005-2007 and the interim head coach for the Razorbacks’ Cotton Bowl loss to Missouri, was named defensive coordinator at Texas A & M on Friday.

Ellis Johnson, 55, has extensive SEC experience having coordinated Mississippi State’s defense the last four years plus two different tenures at Alabama, first as outside linebackers coach including the Crimson Tide’s 1992 national championship team and then as defensive coordinator for the Tide’s 1999 SEC championship team. He has also coordinated defenses at Clemson and Southern Miss and been a head coach at Gardner-Webb and The Citadel.

Johnson’s defensive staff will include Allen (tackles ) and Botkin (ends and special teams coordinator ) sharing defensive line responsibilities while Reggie Johnson will coach linebackers and Ward will coach the secondary.

The offensive assignments include Paul Petrino coordinating the offense and presumably coaching the receivers, Summers coaching the offensive line, Horton wearing three hats coaching running backs and tight ends and coordinating recruiting, and McGee coaching quarterbacks.

Campbell, a veteran recruiter at Texas, Texas A & M, Texas Tech and Air Force, becomes the director of high school relations while Robinson becomes the director of football operations.

Botkin, Horton (an Arkansas native who recruited all in-state recruits during the Nutt to Petrino transition and thereafter ) and Allen (an Arkansas assistant for 10 years ) all bring Arkansas continuity to this Razorback staff.

Additionally, Allen has recruited in Texas and Oklahoma the past 10 years, while Botkin, a native of Baytown, Texas near Houston, has recruited in Texas and Louisiana while at Rice and Louisiana-Monroe and can talk NFL with recruits as a former Pittsburgh Steelers tight end.

Ward coached in the NFL as an assistant with the Oakland Raiders after seven years coaching the secondary at Virginia Tech.

Reggie Johnson knows Petrino well having coached Louisville’s linebackers for him from 2003-06.

On the offensive side, Summers coached the offensive line for Petrino both at Louisville and with the Falcons. Summers has 28 years of coaching including a three-year SEC stint at Kentucky.

Quarterbacks coach McGee was the offensive coordinator at Northwestern of the Big Ten but nonetheless has experience in Arkansas’ neck of the woods. He’s an alum of Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High of which Razorback All-American running back Felix Jones also is an alum. McGee was a quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners and coached in the NFL at Jacksonville before coordinating Northwestern’s offense.

Veltcamp takes over the strength and conditioning program having been the head strength coach the last four years at Louisville. Long will be the graduate assistant on offense while Sanders continues as a graduate assistant on defense.

recent_blogs.jpg

Question of the Day: How many points will Arkansas score?

Jul 01, 2009

We're always thinking of questions here at WholeHogSports.com, and with two-a-days a little more than a month away, we've got plenty to ask the Razorb ...

[+] More of this author's blog

dots_under_blog.gif

Brandon Marcello

Petrino would rather be 'grinding away' at work than Tweeting

Jun 30, 2009

Bobby Petrino isn't ready or convinced he'll join Twitter, the popular social networking Web site,  any time soon. In fact, he'd muc ...

[+] More of this author's blog

dots_under_blog.gif

Brandon Marcello

More basketball recruiting class analysis

Jun 28, 2009

We've got a couple of basketball-related stories on WholeHogSports.com today. Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ha ...

[+] More of this author's blog

dots_under_blog.gif

Brandon Marcello

LB Battle arrested again

Jun 28, 2009

Linebacker Khiry Battle has followed up his arrest for a failure to appear last month with an arrest earlier this morning on charges ...

[+] More of this author's blog

dots_under_blog.gif

Brandon Marcello

New turf, end zones at Razorback Stadium

Jun 27, 2009

Northwest Arkansas Times staff photographer Andy Shupe got a shot for us this afternoon of the ongoing work on the new synthetic turf ...

[+] More of this author's blog

dots_under_blog.gif

Brandon Marcello

Baseball America Poll

Updated May 20

1. UC Irvine 40-12

2. LSU 41-14

3. Arizona St 41-11

4. CS Fullerton 38-14

5. Texas 38-12

6. North Carolina 41-14

7. Ole Miss 40-15

8. Oklahoma 40-16

9. Florida 38-18

10. TCU 35-15

11. Rice 35-15

12. Florida St 40-14

13. Clemson 39-17

14. Georgia Tech 34-15

15. East Carolina 41-15

16. Virginia 39-12

17. Kansas St 39-15

18. Alabama 37-17

19. Cal Poly 35-17

20. Louisville 40-14

21. Minnesota 35-15

22. Elon 37-14

23. Miami Fl 35-18

24. Missouri 32-23

25. South Carolina 37-19

Who is the best defensive lineman in Arkansas' history?


Dave "Hawg" Hanner

Wayne Martin

Jimmy Walker

Dan Hampton

Loyd Phillips

Vote

Arkansas Razorbacks' 2009 Baseball Schedule

Feb. 20

Washington St. (DH)

W 7-5

Feb. 20

Washington St. (DH)

W 4-2

Feb. 22

Washington St.

W 4-3

Feb. 24

Kansas

L 3-9

Feb. 25

Kansas

W 9-8

Feb. 27

Western Illinois

W 8-7

Feb. 28

Western Illinois

     6:00 pm

Mar. 1

Western Illinois

     6:00 pm

Mar. 3

Valparaiso

W 7-3

Mar. 4

Valparaiso

W 9-6

Mar. 6

California

W 5-4

Mar. 7

California

L 6-12

Mar. 8

California

W 13-3

Mar. 10

@ Centenary

L 3-8

Mar. 11

@ Centenary

     6:00 pm

Mar. 13

Florida

W 11-4

Mar. 14

Florida

W 8-4

Mar. 15

Florida

W 4-2

Mar. 17

Nebraska

W 7-3

Mar. 18

Nebraska

L 4-7

Mar. 20

@ Auburn

W 3-2

Mar. 21

@ Auburn

W 10-6

Mar. 22

@ Auburn

W 12-6

Mar. 25

Missouri St.

W 10-0

Mar. 27

Mississippi St.

W 20-9

Mar. 28

Mississippi St.

W 5-1

Mar. 29

Mississippi St.

L 4-12

Mar. 31

@ Missouri St.

W 2-0

Apr. 3

@ South Carolina

W 6-4

Apr. 4

@ South Carolina

L 1-9

Apr. 5

@ South Carolina

W 7-4

Apr. 7

Arizona St.

W 7-3

Apr. 8

Arizona St.

W 8-7

Apr. 10

Vanderbilt

L 0-9

Apr. 11

Vanderbilt

L 6-13

Apr. 12

Vanderbilt

     1:05 pm

Apr. 14

La.-Monroe

L 2-3

Apr. 15

La.-Monroe

W 10-9

Apr. 17

@ Georgia

L 3-4

Apr. 18

@ Georgia

L 3-4

Apr. 19

@ Georgia

W 2-0

Apr. 21

@ Oral Roberts

W 9-6

Apr. 24

@ Tennessee

W 9-3

Apr. 25

@ Tennessee

L 4-5

Apr. 26

@ Tennessee

W 15-8

Apr. 28

Oklahoma

W 8-7

May. 1

LSU

W 11-4

May. 2

LSU

L 0-5

May. 3

LSU

L 3-4

May. 8

@ Alabama

L 1-2

May. 9

@ Alabama

L 6-8

May. 10

@ Alabama

L 5-6

May. 12

Oral Roberts

W 3-2

May. 14

Ole Miss

L 5-7

May. 15

Ole Miss

L 3-9

May. 16

Ole Miss

L 3-16