The Razorbacks’ Most Recent Addition To Tight End Room Has a Gambling Solution

Jeremiah Beck, Arkansas football
photo credit: Chaffey College Athletics

Jeremiah Beck isn’t a gambler in the literal sense — calm down, NCAA — but Arkansas football fans can thank a series of bets for him joining the program last month.

The journey that culminated with the Chaffey College tight end’s commitment to the Razorbacks on Jan. 13 could have easily veered in any number of directions.

However, because he bet on himself four separate times and they played out the way they did, Beck is one of 41 newcomers already in Fayetteville who will go through spring ball and try to help improve upon last year’s 7-6 record.

Even though that was a step in the right direction after the 2023 disaster, many fans still aren’t satisfied and Sam Pittman will enter the 2025 season with one of the warmest seats in the country.

Winning more games in the unforgivable SEC takes an all-hands-on-deck type effort. Fortunately, this is far from the most dire situation into which the 6-foot-4, 235-pound Beck has walked willingly.

Beck’s Rollercoaster Journey Begins

Growing up in Fontana, Calif., which is about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, Jeremiah Beck attended Summit High through his junior year.

Despite success on the gridiron, he wasn’t getting much attention from college coaches and he believed his school wasn’t helping him enough on the recruiting side of things, so he opted to bet on himself by transferring.

Beck landed at Rancho Cucamonga High, where exposure wouldn’t be an issue. The southern California powerhouse routinely churns out FBS prospects, with its most famous recent product being CJ Stroud. A more familiar alum to Arkansas fans is Jermaine Brooks, who played defensive tackle in the early Houston Nutt era.

It seemed to be a great move. He had a good spring and summer with the Cougars and appeared to be on the brink of a breakout. Not traditionally a team that used a tight end, Rancho Cucamonga had fully adapted its offense to utilize Beck’s skillset.

Instead of the storybook senior year he was hoping for, though, everything backfired just 10 minutes before kickoff of the season opener.

“I’m all suited up (and) the athletic director comes down to my coach and says I can’t play because my old team messed with my transfer,” Beck told Best of Arkansas Sports in an interview last month. “I had to sit out the first six games of the season because of that, so that just absolutely killed my recruiting.”

It turns out the CIF – the governing body for high school sports in California – has strict transfer rules that ultimately led to him being suspended the first half of the season. As a result, no scholarships came his way. The closest he got was a preferred walk-on opportunity from Nevada.

With no other options, Beck decided to take the junior college route and initially committed to Mt. San Antonio College in nearby Walnut, Calif.

He was all-in on that school until his high school coach approached him with news of the local JUCO’s new head coach: Darrin Chiaverini. His impressive resume includes starring as a wide receiver at Colorado in the 1990s and spending a few years in the NFL before getting into coaching, eventually serving as the offensive coordinator at his alma mater.

The only problem? The program at Chaffey College was at risk of being shut down because of low enrollment numbers on the football team.

The way it was described to Best of Arkansas Sports by Giles Guy-Williams, who was the wide receivers/tight ends coach there the last two years, the new coaching staff had to beg the administration to give them time to assemble a team.

“We had zero players when we first ever got here,” said Guy-Williams, who has since been hired as the offensive coordinator at San Bernardino Valley College. “It wasn’t a Bishop Sycamore situation, but it was definitely where there’s an uncertainty and he bought into us and he bought into the program.”

Chiaverini and his staff managed to convince six sophomores to return, but the bulk of the roster was built through the high school ranks – all without the guarantee there’d even be a season.

That’s what made Beck such an important flip for the Panthers. Not only was he a talented player on the field, but he was a “nucleus guy” who attracted others with his natural leadership skills.

“We made it happen with guys like Jeremiah because he’s one of those guys that are a focal point,” Guy-Williams said. “You get him, you get six other guys just because of the fact that he’s a cool guy. He’s that aura guy that everybody likes to be around.”

Ending up With Arkansas Football

It was certainly a risk to go to a school sort of hanging in the balance, but it paid off for Jeremiah Beck – although it wasn’t immediate.

He admittedly got off to a rough start at Chaffey because he believed he should already be at a Division I school and was upset with himself that he had to go the JUCO route.

“That first fall camp, I just kept telling myself like, ‘Damn, I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong here,’” Beck said. “I just kept feeling sorry for myself. Then I realized quickly that I have to get out of that mindset and just change gears.”

As a freshman, Beck finished second on the team with 40 receptions in 10 games, totaling 485 yards and three touchdowns while helping the Panthers to an undefeated season.

It was enough to garner more recruiting attention than he ever got in high school, with a pair of FCS schools – Missouri State and Tennessee State – extending offers. He could have jumped at either of those opportunities because he was a full qualifier coming into junior college, but he chose to stick around for a second season.

That was yet another gamble, especially with Chiaverini parlaying the perfect record into a head coaching gig at Northeastern State, a Division II program in Tahlequah, Okla. Not only did he have to learn a new offensive system, but Beck ran the risk of getting hurt or not meshing with a new quarterback – both of which could erase his hopes of continuing his career.

Thankfully for him, it went about as smoothly as possible. Chaffey did lose a few games last season, but he still caught 37 passes for 366 yards and four touchdowns in 11 games.

The two-time All-League selection finally started seeing FBS offers roll in and he ultimately signed with Nevada over the likes of Toledo, New Mexico and UMass. It seemed like a good fit because his sister had just moved to Reno and playing in the Mountain West meant being close to home.

However, the decision didn’t sit well with him.

“Ever since I signed, I had this anxiety about it,” Beck said. “It wasn’t where I was meant to be, if that makes sense. I kind of just rushed into it and I realized that was not a good idea.”

Beck asked for his release and he announced it was granted on Jan. 10. It was this final gamble that sent him halfway across the country.

A few schools expressed interest, like Baylor and Boise State, but many were hesitant to offer because they were in wait-and-see mode with looming roster limits. Luckily for him, Arkansas was in the market for another tight end and he had a couple connections working in his favor.

One of the assistants at Chaffey actually knew special teams coordinator Scott Fountain and sent him Beck’s film in October. Former Arkansas defensive lineman Taylor Lewis was also on staff and helped him get in touch with the Razorbacks.

Tight ends coach Morgan Turner eventually reached out and got the ball rolling. Beck did some research and found his history of putting tight ends in the NFL during his 13-year stint at Stanford before taking the job at Arkansas in 2023.

That was a major selling point, as was the opportunity to play in the SEC, so he committed – sight-unseen – to the Razorbacks as a preferred walk-on, even if he didn’t officially announce his decision until during his visit to Fayetteville.

“I kind of came in here blindly,” Jeremiah Beck said. “I was praying about it for weeks, the whole Nevada thing, if that was the right thing to do or not. Then as soon as I got released from Nevada, I got good news, so I put my faith in the Lord and it all worked out.”

photo credit: Chaffey College Athletics

Jeremiah Beck Scouting Report

Although he’s a walk-on, Jeremiah Beck joins a relatively wide-open tight end room in 2025.

Luke Hasz (Ole Miss), Ty Washington (Notre Dame) and Var’keyes Gumms (UNLV) are playing elsewhere now, while Arkansas has also added Jaden Platt (Texas A&M), Rohan Jones (Montana State) and Gavin Garretson (high school). That trio joins returners Andreas Paaske, Maddox Lassiter and walk-on Spencer Henslee.

None of those tight ends are particularly proven pass catchers at the FBS level, so there’s plenty of playing time up for grabs this spring, even for a walk-on like Beck.

As was the case for Lassiter, one way to carve out a role is by doing the dirty work – an area in which he excels, according to his JUCO position coach.

“I’ve never seen anybody that loves to block as much as him,” Guy-Williams said. “He likes to get his nose dirty and get in there and knock a head loose. But then he also has the new-school capabilities of being able to be a receiving tight end.”

Beck credits his father, who actually played junior college baseball and didn’t play football, for instilling that kind of mindset in him at an early age, making him a prototypical “old-school tight end.”

“There’s no better feeling than putting somebody in the dirt,” Beck said. “I’d rather get a thousand pancakes than a thousand touchdowns.”

It helps that Beck has super flexible hips and a high football IQ, as evidenced by him learning two new playbooks “inside and out” during his two years at Chaffey. That enabled the Panthers to use him in a variety of ways, Guy-Williams said.

The coach added that Beck’s frame could hold more than his current 235 pounds, which would definitely help if he’s going to find his way on the field in the SEC.

A walk-on earning reps – and even a scholarship – isn’t unheard of at tight end, either. Lassiter did just that last year and, a couple years before that, Blake Kern and Nathan Bax did the same. Francis Sherman also began his career as a walk-on at Louisville before transferring to Arkansas.

It’s worth noting that the modern walk-on, in the era of NIL and with revenue sharing set to kick in this summer, can get more than just the dream of playing at the highest level.

That opportunity seems to be enough for Jeremiah Beck, though, as he is yet again betting on himself. Serial gambling is usually considered a vice, but these kinds of bets – even when facing long odds – have served him quite well.

This time, Arkansas hopes it can cash in, as well.

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Check out some highlights of Jeremiah Beck’s sophomore year at Chaffey College:

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