How Hogs' WR Coach Is Reshaping Arkansas Without Anyone Noticing

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Most everyone around Arkansas has been fixated on the quarterback race.

Meanwhile, one of the Razorbacks' assistant coaches has spent the offseason quietly assembling what might be the most complete unit on the entire roster, and almost nobody's talking about it.

Home Run Hire No One Talks About

Larry Smith isn't a splash hire in the traditional sense.

He's a Prattville, Alabama native and former Vanderbilt quarterback who has spent nearly a decade in the trenches of receiver development, first at UAB for seven seasons, then two years at Memphis working directly under Ryan Silverfield.

When Arkansas needed someone to run its receiver room in year one of a total rebuild, Silverfield didn't go searching, he just called the guy he already trusted.

That kind of continuity matters more than fans often realize. Smith isn't learning Silverfield's system on the fly; he helped build it.

Arkansas Razorbacks wide receivers coach Larry Smith during spring practice drills. | Munir El-Khatib-allHOGS Images

At Memphis, his room was headlined by Cortez Braham Jr., a first-team All-American Conference receiver who caught 63 passes for 889 yards and eight touchdowns. That was quick proof Smith knows how to turn portal pieces into productive players.

Before that, he helped revive the UAB football program that had shuttered its doors, but helped lead the Blazers to three bowl games and two Conference USA titles.

Rebuild of WR Room

Smith inherited a Razorbacks receiver room that needed almost everything rebuilt, and by spring he was already sounding like a coach who'd found something.

"One thing that I've been most pleased with is just how they kind of hold each other accountable, kind of feed off each other's energy, coaching each other up," Smith said this spring. "You've got some guys that's played some ball. You've got some unproven guys we're excited about. But it's fun".

He was blunt about what he went and got in the portal, too.

"We needed some size on the outside, we needed some speed, and we needed some guys who were productive".

That's not coach-speak either. Tt's a specific diagnosis of exactly what Arkansas lacked, followed by a targeted fix. Boise State transfer Chris Marshall has already emerged as the frontrunner at WR1 entering fall camp, exactly the kind of proven, productive piece Smith said he was hunting for.

Arkansas Razorbacks Chris Marshall at spring practice. | Nilsen Roman-allHOGS Images

The Loyalty That Started Before the Job Even Existed

Smith's fingerprints on this program go back further than his official hire date.

Back when Arkansas was still searching for a permanent head coach, Silverfield and Smith, both still at Memphis at the time, texted Razorback receiver commit Dequane Prevo in an attempt to flip him to Memphis.

Prevo held firm and stayed committed to Arkansas.

Weeks later, Silverfield took the Arkansas job anyway, and Smith followed him to coach the very player they'd tried to poach.

It's a strange, and almost poetic detail that tells you everything about how tightly wound this staff already was before they ever set foot in Fayetteville.

Camp Is Already Validating the Work

When Arkansas opened fall camp Wednesday in sweltering heat outside the Walker Pavilion, its first-team receivers lined up as CJ Brown, Chris Marshall and a healthy Jamari Hawkins. That effectively pushed Donovan Faupel and Ismael Cisse to the second unit, but proof of a a real, tangible pecking order emerging just one practice into camp.

While things can change throughout camp, this is the product of a coach who spent an entire offseason identifying exactly what this room needed, going and getting it, and then building competition into every single rep.

Build of Perfect Room for QB1

Quarterback battles are always going to get the clicks.

Coordinator hires get the press conferences get the press conferences at the very beginning of a tenure.

Arkansas Razorbacks wide receiver CJ Brown in spring practice. | Munir El-Khatib-allHOGS Images

But a wide receiver room with size, speed and proven production doesn't happen by accident. Smith put was able to piece this group together because of his decade worth of experience developing and churning capable receivers out in an ever-changing landscape.

He knew exactly what to search for once he arrived in the SEC. While the old Commodores' quarterback won't be the biggest story in fall camp, he's quitely building his case to be one of the most important coaches on Silverfield's first staff.

And there's a chance he's quietly built a group of wideouts who might end up carrying whichever quarterback wins the job this fall.

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