The Phone Call That Finally Brought Lunsford to Silverfield, Razorbacks

He turned down the job once, kept texting anyway and waited two years for the right moment to finally say yes.

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Ryan Silverfield at spring practice. | Nilsen Roman-allHOGS Images

From a punter battle to a loaded return game, Arkansas's special teams are building early identity — and the man running them has wanted this job for years.

Spring practice hasn't wrapped up in Fayetteville and Chad Lunsford already knows who he'd hand the football to on a return if Arkansas played tomorrow.

Sutton Smith, the Memphis transfer running back, is the guy. Punt return. Kick return. Both of them.

Lunsford didn't hesitate when he said it Wednesday, and that kind of early clarity on a unit that often takes a full fall camp to sort out says something about where the Hogs are in their special teams build.

"We started looking at who is still left in the transfer portal," Lunsford said, describing the process that brought reinforcements to his punter room this week.

That same deliberate approach is driving every decision he's making across all the special teams groups.

Smith isn't the only name catching eyes out there. Fellow Memphis transfer Jamari Hawkins has made an impression, and so have in-state freshmen Dequane Prevo and Tay Lockett along with Markeylin Batton.

Lunsford expects Smith and Hawkins to be working in the two-deep rotation by the time fall camp opens, which gives the Razorbacks real options at two of the most important real-estate spots on the field.

Lunsford's Four-Phase Philosophy Takes Shape

The philosophy behind how he'll use those players — and how many special teams units starters will actually play — is something Lunsford has thought through carefully.

"We are obviously going to be very smart about it," he said. "You want to build a core group of guys that play teams. So you want those guys that are four-phase guys.

"Most of the times when you get four-phase guys, those are either backups or third string guys at positions."

But depth-chart backups alone don't build elite special teams, and Lunsford knows it. Getting buy-in from the whole program means starters see those units as something worth their attention.

"For your team to one, be good and also to be bought into it, you've got to show that you're willing to put starters on special teams as well," Lunsford said. "The philosophy with coach is going to be, 'Hey, we want a starter to at least be starting on one special team, maybe even two, but we'll be smart about that as well.

"If they're getting huge reps on offense, or if they're getting huge reps on defense, then their special teams role may be only one team, it may be two teams. But we'll be smart about that, and we'll still continue to try to build those four-phase guys from our depth.'"

The punter room has required the most immediate problem-solving this spring. Connor Smith is out. Gavin Rush, who Lunsford views as a legitimate SEC starter in development, hasn't punted or kicked in a college game yet.

That's a thin situation for a coordinator who needs live reps flowing through his operation.

"We do feel like Gavin's really good and can be good enough to be a starting SEC punter, but you got to have depth," Lunsford said.

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Punter Room Requires Immediate Problem-Solving

Arkansas added Jesse Ehrlich from Cal Poly on Tuesday to change that equation.

Ehrlich brings genuine game experience with 23 appearances over two seasons, a 42.4-yard punting average and a long of 66 yards.

He's not coming in to hold a clipboard. He's coming in to push for playing time.

"We were able to find Jesse Ehrlich, who was at Cal Poly," Lunsford said. "He was in the transfer portal and we were able to bring him on a visit. He's got a lot of game experience.

"He's talented. We think he's a guy that can come in and push Gavin. I think Gavin, because of where he's at in his career, he does need somebody to come in and compete with. But I think Gavin can be our starter right now."

A third option surfaced from an unexpected direction.

Noah Kalberer, a student already enrolled at Arkansas, reached out to the staff after the Connor Smith situation developed.

He is rated the 32nd-best punter in the 2025 class by Kohl's Kicking and is now working through a tryout, handling second-team reps and giving Rush's leg a needed break from the workload.

"When everything kind of went down with Connor, we actually … I got reached out to by a young man that's on campus here, that was going to school here, that was a punter, Noah Kalberer, and we brought him out for the spring," Lunsford said. "He's kind of in a tryout situation, so he's been doing the second-team punting for us. Obviously, we didn't want Gavin taking every punt during the spring. That's not very healthy for his leg and all that."

Three punters. Two jobs. One starter's spot that's still genuinely open.

That's what a real competition looks like, and it's the environment Lunsford was hired to create.

A Real Competition, Not a Placeholder Battle

Which brings the story around to how he got hired in the first place and why it took longer than either he or Ryan Silverfield probably would've preferred.

Lunsford isn't the only coordinator on this Arkansas staff who nearly worked for Silverfield before.

Defensive coordinator Ron Roberts had that chance too, back when Silverfield was first assembling his Memphis program.

Roberts was coaching in Louisiana, the fit felt right and an offer was made. Then the math didn't work.

"When he first got to Memphis I was in Louisiana at the time and we met up there and they offered me a job," Roberts said. "I wanted to take it and it just didn't work out, had a buyout they couldn't pay."

Lunsford's version of events involves a different kind of calculus.

When Silverfield called him about the Memphis special teams job in 2023, Lunsford had just relocated his family to South Florida for the FAU job under Willie Taggart.

Taggart left. Tom Herman came in. The whole situation was in flux and moving his kids again after barely a year felt like too much.

"At the time, I had just moved my family down to FAU," Lunsford said. "We had gotten our kids in good schools, and I just didn't want to move them again because we'd only been there a year. So I kind of made a family decision there."

A Real Competition, Not a Placeholder Battle

He stayed in Boca Raton. He also stayed in Silverfield's life, even without a shared employer to connect them.

"I stayed in touch with him and constantly bugged, shot him texts, the whole thing, and just tried to build a relationship even though we were not working together," Lunsford said.

Lunsford eventually left FAU after three years and spent last season at Auburn.

When the Arkansas job landed for Silverfield, Lunsford sent a congratulatory text. It wasn't a pitch, just a genuine acknowledgment of a moment worth recognizing.

"When Coach Silverfield got the Arkansas job, I texted him to congratulate him and say, 'man, love this for you,'" Lunsford said. "That's a big time opportunity. This is great."

The reply had a question attached to it.

"He shot me back and said, hey, you want to talk about special teams?" Lunsford said. "We got on the phone and Zoom and did a little interview, talked and all that and then ended up working out."

Silverfield's Text Back Changed Everything

The one coordinator who didn't have to travel a roundabout path to get here is offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey, who's been calling Silverfield's offenses since 2022.

He had made the move from Memphis along with several position coaches and staffers. Cramsey's the thread of continuity from the Tigers tenure, the baseline that Silverfield built everything else around when he arrived in Fayetteville.

"Not taking the job the first time, he didn't hold it against me, and I'm super excited he didn't," Lunsford said. "I'm glad that now I have the opportunity to work with him. He's the real deal."

The punter competition, the return game, the four-phase depth chart vision ... all of it runs through a coordinator who spent two years texting a head coach he wasn't working for, waiting for the moment to finally be right.

In Fayetteville, it finally is.