Kitler had tough choice to make before committing to Hogs

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas coach Sam Pittman and offensive line coach Eric Mateos put the team's most critical unit under the knife again this offseason in hope for a much improved unit.

Two projected starters along the offensive line committed on the same day minutes apart in December with Georgia Tech transfer left tackle Corey Robinson pledging first.

Less than a half hour later, UCF's Caden Kitler chose not to follow his former coach Gus Malzahn to Florida State and sign with Arkansas instead.

WOO DAMN PIG pic.twitter.com/3xPCHcjA6L
— Caden Kitler (@KitlerCaden) December 19, 2024

As a former guard, the 6-foot-3, 306 pound lineman will shift to center, a place he has yet to record a college snap. Kitler did play quite well for the Golden Knights in 2024, recording a 79.1 pass blocking grade, according to Pro Football Focus.

He earned a 3-star rating as a transfer, No. 770 overall, No. 60 among interior offensive lineman, according to 247sports.

"Caden Kitler is a guy that I’ve been real pleased with at center," Pittman said. "He was at Central Florida and they’d asked him to go to Florida State when their line coach went down there too. That was a big deal for me, as well."

UCF spent its first season in a revitalized Big 12 going 4-8 with just a 2-7 conference record. The Golden Knights offense wasn't a total blunder averaging 448 yards per game.

That total includes a ground attack which averaged over 240 yards per game and 200 passing yards per game

When he told the former Razorbacks wide receiver and offensive coordinator that he'd pursue an opportunity at Arkansas, Malzahn had no hard feelings and spoke highly of the Razorbacks program.

"Gus [Malzahn] was recruiting me at Florida State, so when I told him I was interested in Arkansas, he didn’t have any bad things to say about it," Kitler said. "He still loves the school. So yeah. He was excited for me at the end of the day when I ended up telling him I was coming here."

As a native of The Colony, Texas, Kitler spent his first three years of college almost 17 hours from home. Arkansas' campus is just a hop, skip and jump away from the Dallas suburb and Kitler is excited to be much closer to home being family oriented.

"One of the main goals for me in the portal was to get a little closer to home," Kitler said. I’m a Texas kid so family is really big for me.

So the SEC there’s lot of schools that are closer to Texas than Florida. So that was a big drawing factor to here."

Another big draw of transferring to Arkansas besides proximity to home is how successful Mateos has been at producing centers such as Xavier Newman-Johnson (BYU), James Empey (BYU) and Jacob Ball (Baylor).

"Coach Mateos has coached a lot of great centers in his career, so just seeing that on his resume, coupled with the fact that Arkansas is a four-hour drive from my house and it’s in the SEC really drew me here," Kitler said.

Like most transfers and new additions in the spring, players have an adjustment period of learning a new system.

While blocking concepts are sometimes the same in different offensive schemes, coaches have their own standards and Kitler feels he is in the right spot at Arkansas.

"The hardest part about transferring is learning a new language. All of the calls in this [offensive] line room are completely different from my old [offensive] line room, so that’s been the hardest part," Kitler said. "Adjusting to the culture and learning his technique, completely different. I’m enjoying it. I think it’s better suited for my skill set instead of where I was at."

Kitler believes the Arkansas system will give him an opportunity to display his athleticism a bit more compared to UCF. The Razorbacks blend of a physical rushing attack and finesse passing game will give him more of a professional scheme to play in to impress NFL scouts.

"UCF was very inside zone based," Kitler said. Here, it’s a lot of pin-and-pull, wide zone, so I’m running a lot more. I feel like I’m more athletic than I showed within the past couple of years because I really couldn’t do anything else just because of the style of offense I was in. Now we’re running a lot more, so I’m excited to show what I can do this year."

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