It Doesn't Sound Like Pittman Expects Burks Back Next Year ... Wherever He Goes
Treylon Burks is the best player on this year's Arkansas team and Sam Pittman finally got around to talking about him Wednesday.
The interesting thing is it's taken over half of the season for Pittman to talk much about the junior from Warren who is having some eye-popping numbers.
"Isn't it amazing?" Pittman asked, responding to a direct question early in the press conference. "In his standards, he probably started off slow."
Burks, who has generated about 20% of the Razorbacks' offense this year, didn't practice the last couple of weeks of fall camp.
We have never had a direct answer to that, either. Pittman has told the media he's not going to lie to us, but he's only going to tell us what he wants us to know about, which sounds like a politician.
What Sam Pittman Thinks About Playing Home Games on Road
What Pittman said Wednesday raises more questions. Apparently Burks slow start helped him prove a point.
"Against Rice he wasn't able to practice and proved a pretty good point, you know, for me," Pittman said. "It helped the team, actually.
"If you're not able to practice, you're probably not going to play very well. That's what happened."
Even with the slow start, Burks has 38 catches for 628 yards and five touchdowns. He's also got 1,923 yards for a career that started with a coaching staff that couldn't figure out how to get him the ball.
He'll pass another Lumberjack, Greg Childs (2,066 yards) on the all-time list playing in 17 fewer games so far.
Burks is tied with Cobi Hamilton for the fourth-most 100-yard receiving games in program history with eight in his career. If he can reach the century mark before the end of the season, he’ll tie Anthony Lucas and Anthony Eubanks’ single-season record of five in a season.
He currently leads the SEC with 628 receiving yards. Despite the slow start for whatever reason, Burks has notched 100 receiving yards and at least one touchdown in four of his last five games.
Other Hogs have noticed.
"He's just been an incredible player here at Arkansas," tight end Hudson Henry said Tuesday evening. "He’ll go down as one of the best players to ever play here."
The other Henry brother weighed in, too.
"He’s a beast," linebacker Hayden Henry said. "When the ball’s in the air and I see he’s the intended receiver, I get really excited because I know something special’s about to happen."
How Does Dominique Johnson Prepare to Crush Defenders?
They grew up with a pretty good receiver as a big brother. Hunter Henry won the Mackey Award and has scored touchdowns now in three straight games with the New England Patriots this season.
"He's a competitor, can catch anything close to him and great on one-on-one," Pittman said. "His running after the catch has improved. We just threw one out to him the other day and said, okay, it's one-on-one and he didn't have a blocker or anything.
"He made the guy miss and got about a 12-yard gain or something like that. He gets better every year."
And Pittman has no idea right now if he'll be back for another year with the Hogs.
"He was a good player last year and a better player this year," he said. "Depending on what he decides to do, he'll be a better player next year whether it's for us or somebody else."
Former Razorback's Big NBA Contract Extension
Most assume he'll be headed to the NFL.
That decision may depend heavily on where he falls in the projected draft rankings. There aren't many surprises there.
But it sounded like Pittman thinks if that ranking isn't high enough he might be somewhere else.
There are options these days.
Want to join in on the discussion? Click here to become a member of the AllHOGS message board community today!Follow AllHOGS on Twitter and Facebook.
