Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman was supposed to finally have his day of rest, in theory anyway. Certainly, he’d been a most busy man in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day.
The Head Hog has had to juggle a postseason hip replacement surgery and replacing 27 outgoing transfers with now 16 players incoming from the portal. But Pittman probably didn’t mind at all that the quiet of Christmas afternoon was punctured when a certain Pine Bluff native officially signed his papers to become a Hog.
Oh, lest we forget: Pittman’s preparing for the Liberty Bowl on top of all that.
That bowl prep has obviously been made more difficult by the number of portal defectors, along with NFL Draft opt-outs like Landon Jackson, Andrew Armstrong and Ja’Quinden Jackson. Pittman’s had to get a bit creative with the team’s depth chart for the clash with Texas Tech – especially at the wide receiver position.
The Hogs will have to fill the void left behind by the SEC-leading wideout’s understandable decision to get ready for the professional ranks. Additionally, Isaiah Sategna decided to transfer to Oklahoma, leaving Taylen Green without his top two wideouts in Memphis. Arkansas will also be without sophomore speedster Jordan Anthony, who is dealing with a family matter. Wide receiver Courtney Crutchfield’s arrival from Missouri is all good and well, but it doesn’t help with the task at hand.
While it initially looked like graduating senior Tyrone Broden would miss out on the bowl game while dealing with a personal matter, he will indeed play on Friday, Pittman confirmed. That’s welcome news considering it looked for a while like 29-year-old walk-on Monte Harrison would need to assume a starting role alongside true freshman CJ Brown. The pair of freshmen (with a 10-year age gap between them) combined for just three catches for 41 yards this season.
Texas Tech is allowing 305.3 passing yards per game – the second-worst mark in the nation. The trope about Big 12 defenses being Swiss cheese-like has been around for a long time, but the Red Raiders’ secondary certainly warrants such a reputation.
It will obviously be a major key in the Liberty Bowl for Arkansas to exploit that weakness, so it’s worth looking at how Pittman and offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino will divvy up the reps in the wide receiver room.
Whom Should Taylen Green Target in the Liberty Bowl?
One would assume that Broden coming available means he’ll slide into the starting trio on Friday alongside TeSlaa. The Bowling Green transfer posted a modest 15 catches for 197 yards and a touchdown and had frequent struggles dropping passes this season, but he certainly has the nod as far as experience goes.
In the new age of bowl games, though, there’s a fine balancing act for coaches between trying to win in the present while also preparing for the future. In the Hogs’ case, what are the pros and cons to giving reps to more experienced wideouts like TeSlaa and Broden as opposed to putting younger guys like Brown, Krosse Johnson and Dazmin James out there?
After all, the two seniors will be gone after this game. Coaches often talk about how beneficial bowl practices are for young players, and game reps are even more helpful for development.
The Liberty Bowl is far from the most prestigious postseason game out there, so it could be better for the 2025 Razorbacks’ sake to give more run to the young guns. Pittman said those younger reserve players have stood out a lot in practice the last few weeks.
“Krosse Johnson at wide receiver, CJ Brown at wide receiver, those two guys have stuck out,” Pittman said Monday. “I’ll tell you a guy that we moved to wide receiver that was playing tight end and is really good is Shamar Easter. We moved him out to wideout and he’s done some good things.”
On Thursday, Pittman got more into the weeds on how the transition is going. “I would say that is the move for” Easter, Pittman said. “Honestly, that’s what he played in high school. He just had a ‘tight end’ by his name. He’s certainly in the game plan, and so we’ll see how he plays and all that — see how much he plays. But we have a lot of…he’s proven that we should trust him and be ready for him to go tomorrow night.”
Isaac TeSlaa, meanwhile, has certainly paid his dues to the program as a multi-year starter, and is deserving of leading the wideouts in Memphis. But beyond that, it might be better for the team’s future to start guys like Brown and Easter – especially the latter, who will have a prominent role at tight end next year and could use the reps.
At the same time, it’s worth wondering how much the younger guys’ extra reps will actually help for the future considering all the transfer wideouts Arkansas is bringing in for next year. On Thursday, of course, Crutchfield arrived as the newest Hog. On Wednesday, the Hogs had unwrapped an early Christmas gift out of the transfer portal in the form of Charlotte’s O’Mega Blake to join Fresno State’s Raylen Sharpe and UAB’s Kam Shanks.
If the aforementioned quartet comes to fruition, then what’s the point of dedicating too many snaps to guys who are almost certainly going to be buried on the depth chart again next season? From that more cynical point of view, it would make more sense to target TeSlaa as much as possible and not think too much further than that.
Of course, Petrino will likely dial up more spread formations to try and exploit Texas Tech’s vulnerability in the secondary. That will likely mean a lot of packages with four wide receivers, allowing room for TeSlaa and Broden on the field alongside a pair of younger guys. Brown’s size at 6-foot-3 as well as Johnson’s blazing track speed both present matchup problems for the Red Raiders.
The Hogs will likely dial up a combination of youth and experience at wide receiver to try and inflict an aerial assault on Texas Tech. Petrino and Green will hope that the receiving room can step up to fill in for their absent stars in Memphis on Friday.
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Speaking of Arkansas wide receivers, here’s a doozy of a claim about Antonio Jordan, one of Arkansas’ 2025 signees:
It appears Courtney Crutchfield and Braylen Russell are already talking about what they will do together for the Razorbacks.
More on that and more here:
Read our Arkansas vs Texas Tech preview here:
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