For some of the shortcomings coach Sam Pittman and the Arkansas football staff have endured, they are off to a hot start in the early stages of the 2026 cycle.
Despite four-star offensive lineman Bear McWhorter backing off of his pledge in June, the Hogs currently have the nation’s eighth-best class according to the 247Sports Composite. Durant (Okla.) four-star edge Colton Yarbrough – the top-ranked player in Oklahoma per 247Sports and Rivals – leads the way in the five-man class.
The Hogs also have one of the biggest prospects – both in ranking and stature – on their radar in Nixa (Mo.) offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell. The five-star prospect is the top player in Missouri across all major recruiting services and tabbed as high as the second-best overall recruit in the 2026 class by Rivals.
The son of two USA Olympian shot put throwers, Cantwell has also exploded onto the track and field scene. He was named Missouri’s Gatorade Player of the Year as a sophomore while surpassing his own records in both shot put (74-feet, 9.75 inches) and discus (205-4) throws at the Class 5 District 6 meet this past spring.
Cantwell released his Top 14 on July 18 and the Hogs made the cut on a list that also included the likes of defending national champion Michigan and Ohio State, along with fellow SEC foes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, plus his home state Missouri Tigers. Miami, Nebraska, Oregon and Southern California were the remaining programs.
It is worth noting that Arkansas is the closest to home out of those 14 choices, edging out Alma native Eli Drinkwitz’s Mizzou program by about 30 minutes, but distance is something Cantwell will have to adapt to if football ends up being his future. Cantell has visited Missouri four times, tied with Georgia for the most visits he has taken to one school thus far.
“It is cool to think there is a way to stay close to my hometown, but I am not necessarily going to be banking on that,” Cantwell said in an exclusive interview with Best of Arkansas Sports. “If you make it to the NFL, you’re going to have to move around so you could end up in Green Bay, Miami, you never know.
“There could be something said about wanting to stay close to home and it would be something cool to think about.”
Along with making stops at Alabama and LSU, Cantwell took his fourth visit in the past year to Georgia during the final week of July.
“I’m not sure what everything will look like but I’m pretty interested in Georgia,” Cantwell told Dawg Nation. “I can see myself taking more visits there and we’ll see what happens after that.”
Cantwell also acknowledged that Alabama “could be in the long term” for him and that the Crimson Tide “exceeded his expectations the most.”
Since the beginning of 2024, Cantwell has also visited Nebraska, Missouri, Oregon and Southern Cal. Per the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine, Missouri does lead the early race, with a 26.3% chance the Tigers land Cantwell.
Cantwell added that he will likely narrow down his list down to around six schools in January once he wraps up his junior season. He has not been in communication with Pittman since the spring, but Canwell has recently spoken with offensive line coach Eric Mateos, as well as offensive senior quality control coach Sean Fogarty.
“Mateos has contacted me,” Cantwell confirmed. “We have not really talked about a whole lot yet, but we have talked a little bit.”
That’s not particularly uncommon at this stage of the recruiting process, as most head coaches are primarily focused on securing commitments from rising seniors during the summer. Assistant coaches and other staffers are typically in touch with the athletes in future classes.
Maturing Early
Multiple injuries to the offensive line early on two seasons ago left Nixa head coach John Perry no choice but to move the quickly blossoming Jackson Cantwell up from the ninth grade squad.
“The next best guy was Jackson,” said Nixa offensive line coach Kenzie Medley, a Mountain Home native who enters his third season on staff with the Eagles. “We pulled him off of the freshman team and put him on the varsity. He started Week 3 and he has [started] every game since at left tackle for us.”
Cantwell helped Nixa to a 10-2 record and quarterfinal round finish in the Class 6 state playoffs that season. The Eagles are 21-3 over the past two seasons with consecutive Class 6 quarterfinal finishes, while Cantwell logged 91 pancake blocks and allowed 0 sacks as a sophomore in 2023.
Just as Cantwell had to adapt to the speed of the varsity level, his recruiting took off quickly as he visited Kansas State two weeks removed from his first varsity start in October 2022 and earned his first offer from the Wildcats.
“They offered me on the spot whenever I got there so that was about when everything got started,” Cantwell recalls of his visit to Manhattan. “I got an offer from Missouri later that year, then that offseason is where I kind of blew up per se. I had pretty much all of the offers I have now, minus a few, by my sophomore year.”
While some 15- or 16-year-old kids would be shell shocked by the bombardment of attention from some of the top programs in college football, it has mostly been a natural flow of events for Cantwell.
“Once I heard the reviews from the first couple of coaches that believed in me, I kind of knew that this was going to become really, really big really, really fast,” Cantwell said. “I had no idea once I got in there [on varsity], but once I kind of got rolling I just figured it would eventually happen.”
Along with track and field, plus football, Cantwell has also thrived on the basketball court. Being a multi-sport athlete has translated over to his continued development on the gridiron. Additionally, Cantwell thrives in the classroom, maintaining a 4.0 GPA and scoring a 33 on the ACT when he was a freshman.
“He’s naturally just a good athlete,” Medley said. “In track with shot and disk, a lot of that is footwork and balance so he was pretty aware of how to use his size. When we brought him over to varsity it was more the techniques of blocking, this is how we use your size and length to your advantage.”
Cantwell initially played tight end before moving inside to the offensive line – similar to former Razorback Jason Peters, who converted to offensive tackle in the NFL and had a two-decade long career – which is where Medley got his first look at Cantwell.
“They would just throw the ball up to him and he showed that he had soft hands,” Medley said. “You could tell early on from a football side that he was going to be something special after he had done it on the track side for a long time.
“We convinced him that he was not going to be a tight end, he was probably going to be a big-time left tackle.”
Though Cantwell was blessed with good genes, success at the rate he has found it does not come without paying the price.
“A lot of that he does on his own,” Medley said. “He is through-and-through a technician. He probably watches as much, or more, film than me. He and I watch film all the time and compare notes on what he sees, what I see. It is kind of a collaboration.”
Cantwell’s Olympic Pedigree
Being the son of two former shot put Olympians, it would make almost too much sense for Jackson Cantwell to compete in track and field at the next level.
His father, Christian Cantwell, has won gold medals in multiple World Championship events and also took home silver during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Jackson’s mother, Teri Cantwell (nee Steer), competed in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
Their son has already established himself as the reigning Missouri Gatorade Player of the Year in track as only a sophomore and he also won a national championship at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in June.
Despite being a natural who also works tirelessly to perfect his craft, Cantwell’s primary athletic focus in college is football.
“I would definitely enjoy getting to do track in college, but I do not think it is the No. 1 priority right now,” Cantwell said. “Football is what I am looking at in the big picture.
“I think being able to do track, especially for the first couple of years, would be something very fun to do. I want to try and compete at the NCAA level. I think that I could help somebody out there and it would be good to do during the offseason so that I can train in different ways.”
Will Arkansas Make the Final Cut?
Of the 14 teams remaining on Jackson Cantwell’s list, Arkansas stands out as one that has struggled in its most recent history. Success on the field will play a role in his decision, as expected, but Cantwell is also looking at the bigger picture.
“Success during the season and a winning program will definitely help,” he mentioned. “Also just continuing to build relationships and [having] quality academics is something good. Proximity might play a factor and it might not.
“Just in general where I would feel the most confident in, and I feel like I will probably get that in about a year. Going with that feeling and where I think I could thrive the most is where I will end up going.”
It has been a little while since Cantwell and Sam Pittman spoke directly last spring, but Pittman’s proven history has gained Cantwell’s respect.
“I met Coach Pittman about a year ago when we came down there and I liked him a lot, he has been pretty much anywhere and everywhere while having success at those places,” Cantwell said. “There was a graphic that got sent to my house a couple of weeks ago of all the places he has coached. He has seen the game at all stages and he has a lot of great wisdom from that. I also thought it was cool that he, as an offensive line coach, got a shot to be a head coach.”
Along with Pittman’s lengthy coaching resume that spans four decades, Cantwell pointed out that offensive line coach Eric Mateos, 35, also meshes well with recruits being a little closer to his age.
“I definitely like coaches who can relate to the young guys more because I have been to places where I could tell the coaches did not really have a lot of great relationships with players,” Cantwell said. “I think that is something that would be pretty cool to learn more about.”
Cantwell’s updated top schools list will likely come at the beginning of 2025, but he indicated that only a handful of his top six will actually earn an official visit.
“I will probably have, like, four schools that I take official visits to and those will probably be the only schools I choose between,” Cantwell said. “I want to have it down to that low by that point because otherwise I do not think I will make a well-informed decision.”
Headlined by the return of former head coach Bobby Petrino as the offensive coordinator and a defense led by rising coordinator Travis Williams, the Hogs have an opportunity to get things back on track in 2024 — which would go a long way in increasing Arkansas’ chances to land its highest-rated recruit of the rankings era.
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