Recent Recruiting Success Echos Chad Morris' Last Class, but How Good Did It Turn Out?

With a class that is 88% 4-star recruits, the Razorback staff is on a roll, but so were the Hogs in 2019

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Apr 22, 2023 11:19 AM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE – With a recruiting class last season that featured eight 4-star recruits and a 2024 class in which seven of the eight commits are 4-stars, the future at Arkansas looks promising on paper.

Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman and his group of recruiting wonders landed 4-stars Jaden Allen (CB), Courtney Crutchfield (WR) and Charleston Collins (DL) in the past couple of days and appear poised to nab a few more highly touted recruits in the coming weeks.

It's a big improvement over Pittman's first two recruiting classes at Arkansas. They each featured only four 4-star recruits, none of which are still with the team from the 2020 class.

However, getting a stellar recruiting class to campus is the easy part. What happens after that is where things get interesting.

For instance, one of the best collections of recruits in recent Arkansas history came under Chad Morris prior to his final season. He brought in a dozen 4-stars that season, which had the state buzzing. However, what came of the group shows hype around recruits should be limited to what players do once they actually hit a college campus.

Here's how things panned out.

Treylon Burks, WR

Burks went on to become one of the best wide receivers in school history with 2,621 all purpose yards and 19 touchdowns in 22 games as a Razorback. He went on to be drafted in the first round by the Tennessee Titans.

Hudson Henry, TE

Henry is one of the few players who was truly built to be more successful under Chad Morris than Sam Pittman. He never found his footing as a Razorback and retired at the end of last season. He finished with 27 catches for 161 yards, never reaching the end zone as a Razorback.

Trey Knox, WR

Knox never took off as a receiver. However, after converting to an undersized tight end before eventually being built into a slightly less undersized tight end, he became a relatively effective weapon for quarterback KJ Jefferson. His biggest season was under Morris with 28 catches for 385 yards and three touchdowns. However, Knox's most prolific scoring season came last year when he posted five touchdowns on 26 catches for 296 yards. Knox left at the end of the season, following his tight ends coach Dowell Loggains to South Carolina.

Devin Bush, CB

Bush recorded one tackle in his career as a Razorback. He then transferred to Grambling in spring of 2022. However, he isn't on the 2022 Tigers roster and shows no stats from Grambling. He was on a chart showing him as the No. 1 cornerback heading into the season and there is a photo of him standing on campus in August, but after that he vanishes.

Jalen Catalon, S

Everyone knows the story here. He made a huge splash his sophomore season with 99 tackles and three interceptions, then got banged up the following year before having to give up and go get surgery in the middle of the season. After that, he played one half of football before transferring to Texas.

Collin Clay, DE

Clay played one season at Arkansas, recording 15 tackles before leaving at the end of his freshman season to go to Oklahoma State. There he was injured for two years until finally getting into a few games this past season.

Mataio Soli, DE

Soli was an Arkansas legacy, but he never could develop the size needed to play defensive end successfully in the SEC. His freshman season at Arkansas was the best of his career with 19 tackles. He transferred two years ago with 30 total tackles in three seasons and went to Hawaii where he played four games last season before medically retiring from football.

KJ Jefferson, QB

While he was definitely a project coming out of high school, Jefferson had a lot of rough skills that could be refined. Fortunately for him, instead of being stuck in the cyclone of insanity that was the quarterback rotation under Morris, Jefferson got to develop into a quality SEC quarterback under offensive coordinator Kendall Briles and appears to be getting refined into NFL form under Dan Enos. Outside of Burks, Jefferson is the one shining star of that Morris recruiting class. Barring injury, he should break numerous Arkansas passing and rushing records this season. Jefferson has thrown for 5,618 yards, almost all of which came under Pittman, 1,429 rushing yards and accounted for 67 touchdowns. For those who struggle with math, that's 7,047 yards and 402 points.

Greg Brooks, Jr., CB

Brooks became a defensive standout at Arkansas for three seasons and was even named captain. However, when NIL came around and changing schools became as easy as changing shirts, Brooks bolted for LSU. The move paid off for Brooks. He nearly doubled his career high in tackles, matched his career high in interceptions and even got the first sack of his career.

TQ Jackson, WR

Jackson had one catch for two yards at Arkansas as a freshman. He then transferred to SMU where he ran back five punts for (-4) yards and one kickoff for eight yards, then disappeared from college football.

Shamar Nash, WR

Nash played two seasons at Arkansas and then transferred to Memphis. Despite his prototypical size, he never recorded a single stat in college football.

Zach Williams, DE

Outside of Jefferson, Williams is the only other member of that last Morris recruiting class to stick it out at Arkansas. He has improved each season, recording a career high 34 tackles and 4.5 sacks last season. With a new defensive scheme, this could be his best chance to prove to NFL scouts that he's worthy of a pick in next season's NFL draft.

It should be noted that the group of 4-stars from the 2022 class have all either heavily contributed already or are in a strong position to impact the upcoming season a great deal. There are also several 4-stars in the 2023 class who showed sparks in the spring that indicate they too will force their way into significant playing time this fall.

The development of highly touted players appears to be more consistent of late as the transition from the final few players of the Chad Morris era comes to a close this fall.

For whatever reason, player evaluation seems to also be more consistent under Pittman than under Morris, which proved to be a lot of big swings, but also a lot of big misses. If the trends hold, 2025 could be the most talented team Arkansas has fielded in a long time.