Arkansas football special teams coordinator Scott Fountain got what he desperately needed on Tuesday when Scott Starzyk, the nation’s top kicking prospect, flipped his commitment from Iowa to Arkansas.
A native of The Woodlands, Texas, Starzyk is ranked No. 1 in the country by Kohl’s Professional Camps. A couple weeks ago, the Razorbacks lost another elite kicking prospect in Evan Noel, who flipped to Florida. Noel was the top kicker according to 247Sports, but Kohl’s is widely regarded as the most reputable outlet for ranking specialists. Noel is rated as the No. 2 kicker on the Kohl’s leaderboard.
Noel’s decommitment set off a DEFCON 1 alarm bell for Arkansas’ special teams room in 2025. Both kickers on the current roster that got playing time this season, Matthew Shipley and Kyle Ramsey, are out of eligibility – and both performed below par this season.
Starzyk has hit multiple 50-yard field goals this season, including a 55-yarder in October. He boasts offers from Michigan, Iowa and Texas A&M, among others. He has also shown prowess in punting, with Kohl’s scouting report describing him as the best combo kicker/punter in the class.
“At the Texas Showcase in May 2022, he had a perfect charting of field goals at the event…and hit multiple 69+ yard kickoffs with over 3.8 seconds of hang time,” the scouting report said. “His punting was also at the elite level with a 50-yard, 4.78-second hang time.”
Clearly, this kid is talented.
Scott Starzyk’s Flip Lets Scott Fountain Breathe Sigh of Relief
The star kicker’s change of heart comes at the perfect time for Fountain and the Razorbacks. Not only was the team in the middle of a crisis at the kicker position, but the Hogs’ special teams unit is also coming off a disastrous performance against Louisiana Tech.
Arkansas allowed the Bulldogs to convert a fake punt and a fake field goal, and muffed a punt as a result of a blocker running into return man Isaiah Sategna – a recurring issue this season. The Hogs also had an opening kick return touchdown called back due to holding, and let Louisiana Tech open the second half with a 39-yard return.
It was the culmination of an overall ugly campaign for the special teams unit, punctuated by kicking struggles and head-scratching miscues. Noel’s decommitment seemed to be the final straw for Arkansas fans’ patience with Fountain, as many had knives out for the coordinator after Saturday’s game.
Flipping Starzyk might serve as a nice “deep breath” moment for all parties involved, as the Hogs should now have a reliable kicker ready to go on Day 1 of the new season.
Fountain’s ability to sway Starzyk is even more impressive given the fact that he was committed to Iowa, widely regarded to have one of the best special teams units in the country over the last few years.
Iowa’s Special Teams Excellence Compared to Arkansas
This season, the Hawkeyes rank near the top of the country in a number of special teams metrics. That comes even after losing arguably the best punter in college football history, Tory Taylor, who was the only punter selected in the 2024 NFL Draft. Taylor broke the all-time NCAA records for both total punt yardage and career yards per punt.
Even outside of Taylor, the Hawkeyes have had stellar special teams performance in recent years. As such, Iowa football assistant coach LeVar Woods’ $700,000 salary makes him the fifth-highest paid special teams coordinator in the country. He’s been in that post since 2018. Fountain, by contrast, makes $500,000 per year (15th-highest salary).
It’s worth comparing the two programs’ performances over the last five seasons using the special teams efficiency index. Take a look…
| Season | Iowa | Arkansas |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 5th | 118th |
| 2021 | 6th | 58th |
| 2022 | 9th | 23rd |
| 2023 | 25th | 29th |
| 2024 | 21st | 80th |
| Average Rank | 13.2 | 61.6 |
With three top-10 finishes in the last five seasons, Iowa is clearly setting the standard as one of the sport’s elite special teams units. The Razorbacks’ poor performances in 2020 and 2024 – the seasons before and after Cam Little came to town – are certainly troubling. They suggest that the standout kicker’s talent played a big role in keeping Arkansas’ unit afloat.
The Hogs’ 2024 struggles on special teams make it that much more surprising that Arkansas was able to flip him, but a number of factors ended up pointing in the Razorbacks’ favor.
Hawkeye Beacon, Iowa’s Rivals affiliate, had speculated about Scott Starzyk flipping since September because of the issue of immediate playing time. Iowa’s current kicker, Drew Stevens, is a junior who’s set to return next season. Arkansas, by contrast, doesn’t have a sure-fire starting kicker for 2025.
Back when he was still committed to the Hawkeyes, he said that while “a redshirt for one season isn’t too bad of a deal,” he would “love to start” as a freshman in an ideal scenario. Every team has five offensive linemen and a handful of defensive backs who all get to start, but there’s only one kicker who gets to play. That makes a Power Four starting role that much more valuable for specialists.
Arkansas presents that ideal opportunity for Starzyk right away.
Starzyk and Brooks Ellis Shine Light on Arkansas and Iowa Similarities
The Hawkeyes have built an identity over the years of using hard-nosed defense and smart special teams to win football games in spite of usually below-average offenses. On the same day as Starzyk’s flip, a former Razorback standout’s perspective on the current state of the program brought out some compelling comparisons between the two schools.
“The money is not the solution,” said Brooks Ellis, a Fayetteville native and former linebacker for the Hogs. “The solution is to develop players from freshman to senior year just like Iowa did for so long. They would have dudes that they developed over a long period of time. They didn’t have the most flashy offense because they couldn’t get all the best players, but they still had an incredible team that played together and they would have some really great seasons.”
The best examples of this would be tight ends TJ Hockensen and George Kittle. Hockensen is an Iowa native who was a three-star out of high school, and Kittle was a two-star whose father played for the Hawkeyes. Both were developed at Iowa and have gone on to star in the NFL. Offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs was an in-state, four-star prospect who became a first-round pick in the NFL Draft. Taylor was far from home-grown coming from Australia, but he did spend a full four years on campus developing.
Iowa is far from a hotbed for blue-chip football talent, but the Hawkeyes have done an elite job at developing lesser-heralded in-state kids under head coach Kirk Ferentz, who is in his 26th season leading the program. Ellis believes some similar stability and development would improve the Hogs in the long run.
“The strength of the Razorback is homegrown athletes. Developed, hard-working dudes who want the state to win,” he said. “When I was going through, we had dogs who loved the Razorbacks and wanted them to succeed. Me, [Austin Allen], [Hunter Henry], we were all Razorback fans growing up.”
The parallels between Arkansas and Iowa are remarkable. The two states have nearly identical populations (just over 3 million) and land area (just over 50,000 square miles). Both are the flagship universities of states with no major professional sports teams. Both programs had their best successes many decades ago, with national titles in the 1950s and 1960s. Neither state is renowned for producing elite talent, and both programs have to try and compete in the two toughest mega-conferences in the country.
So maybe the Hogs could take some notes?
Could Sam Pittman Replicate Kirk Ferentz’s Success?
Ferentz has been at Iowa since the turn of the century, compiling a record of 203-123 and only missing out on a bowl game in four seasons. Looking through his CV, most of Iowa’s seasons resulted in seven or eight wins, with the occasional pop for 10 wins or more. There’s been an occasional blip, such as two rough seasons at the start of his tenure and a 4-8 outlier in 2012, but other than that it has been consistent success.
During his time at Iowa, the program has averaged 7.8 wins per game. That is strikingly similar to the expectation that the average Arkansas football fan has for the program. Go to a non-sucky bowl game almost every year, and occasionally pop out for a special season. It’s not glamorous, but it’s consistent and sustained success.
Excluding the 2020 COVID year, Pittman has mostly stuck to that blueprint. An overperformance in 2021 going 9-4, an underperformance in 2023 going 4-8, and two average seasons where the Hogs had an unremarkable campaign but still made a bowl game. By that calculus, he’s mostly on the mark for where Arkansas has been since joining the SEC.
Of course, the major key going forward is to boost that figure and ensure that the 2023 disaster was indeed an outlier. If Pittman wants to keep this ship rolling slow and steady, he can’t afford another season like that. But if the Hogs continue to reach the postseason every year and the Head Hog ends up overperforming expectations again in the coming years, he’ll be good as gravy.
To keep things going in a positive direction, Ellis added Pittman needs to put more of a priority on in-state talent rather than participating in transfer portal bidding wars.
“We can’t be focused on money; we can’t keep blaming money for not getting the right players in,” Ellis said. “You’re not doing your job as a coach if you don’t develop players or bring in players you think are capable of winning. That’s your job. It’s about bringing the right players in, the players that want to be there.”
Ellis has a point there, as Arkansas’ hit rate on top in-state prospects has not been where it should be over the past few years – less than 50% during Pittman’s tenure.
In-state studs like Braylen Russell, Charlie Collins and Isaiah Sategna populate the Hogs’ roster, but Pittman has also let a number of homegrown products slip through his fingers during his tenure. The sight of Pine Bluff native Courtney Crutchfield in a Missouri uniform on Saturday is sure to make Arkansas fans sick after missing out on the blue-chip wideout.
Ellis’ two cents suggest that Arkansas should do a better job putting a fence around the state and developing the in-state talent it already has. In many ways, Pittman can take a page out of Ferentz’s playbook for future recruiting classes.
Ferentz obviously can’t solely focus on Iowa prospects in the same way Pittman can’t cut it by only pulling from Arkansas – the states just don’t produce enough talent for that. The longtime Hawkeyes coach makes sure to retain the state’s elite prospects while also branching into nearby areas like Illinois and the metros of Kansas City and St. Louis.
Pittman has to have the same border-state policy as Ferentz with neighboring hotbeds like Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Arkansas’ most recent commitment – four-star receiver Dequane Prevo out of Texarkana, Texas – is a perfect illustration of that. Finding similar recruiting wins will allow the Razorbacks to continue building the core of a strong 2026 class.
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Brooks Ellis’ full State of the Union address on Twitter:
Inside Arkansas breaks down the Hogs’ NIL situation heading into the offseason:
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