The ultimate sign of respect in sports is when a player performs so well that even the opposing fanbase has to give their props.
You see it in baseball when a starting pitcher gets a tip of the cap after a quality road start, or in soccer when an opposing player gets a standing ovation after being subbed off. Shoot, Michael Jordan got his jersey retired by the Miami Heat, a team for which he never even played.
Last week, the same happened for Arkansas football quarterback Taylen Green in his first opportunity on the national stage, as the junior gunslinger shined on ABC in a road start against No. 16 Oklahoma State.
Despite the 39-31 loss in double overtime, Green put up video game numbers – 416 yards through the air and another 61 on the ground, putting him near the top of the SEC’s passing leaderboard. Cowboy fans took to social media after the game to heap praise on Green for the plays he made.
Heading into Arkansas vs UAB on Saturday afternoon, UAB head coach Trent Dilfer also sang Green’s praises at his weekly presser.
High Praise ahead of Arkansas vs UAB
“He’s got everything,” Dilfer said of Green. “I know the guys playing on Sunday and he looks like one of them. He can throw with the best of them, he can read defenses, he’s athletic. He’s got physical confidence because of his skill set, he’s poised, he’s got everything. So it’s a tremendous challenge.”
While it’s easy to write that off as coach speak, praise like that means a little more from Dilfer. The 52-year-old played 14 seasons in the NFL, winning a Super Bowl and making a Pro Bowl along the way.
After retiring, he worked for ESPN as an NFL analyst and, most notably, helped establish the nationally prominent Elite 11 quarterback camp. Since he started there in 2009, Dilfer has worked with the top QBs in the country each year – that includes 27 of 32 current NFL starters and 14 of the last 15 Heisman Trophy-winning QBs.
So it’s safe to say he knows a good signal caller when he sees one.
Dilfer also has a pre-existing relationship with the Hogs’ QB1, as Green participated in Elite 11 coming out of high school. To a degree, Green’s success makes Dilfer look better since he played a role in the native Texan’s development as a teenager.
“Tremendous player, tremendous athlete. It was the COVID year in Elite 11, so we only got to see him from a virtual standpoint,” Dilfer said this week. “But we, as an Elite 11 staff, thought the world of him as a person and as a player.”
Despite Dilfer’s positive comments about Green, another ex-NFL quarterback who hits much closer to home was more critical of Arkansas’ gunslinger.
Clint Stoerner’s Comments Offer Criticism From Within
Despite almost universal compliments on his performance, the harshest postgame critique of Green came from a former Arkansas quarterback Clint Stoerner.
He said that while Green looked better than he did against UAPB in the season opener, he still has a long way to go if Arkansas wants to win close games. He specifically cited Green missing a touchdown pass in overtime that could have swung the outcome of the game.
“You can’t win big games when your quarterback misses those kinds of throws,” Stoerner said on 103.7 The Buzz’s Out of Bounds earlier this week. “He missed a touchdown last week, he missed a touchdown this week. If we’re doing our job right then we’ve got to discuss that.”
Stoerner was sure to point out that the blame doesn’t lie entirely with Green, but rather on the entire team and coaching staff for poor clock management and a failure to execute, which led to the Hogs blowing a 14-point lead in Stillwater.
“I don’t know what in the world was going on in some of the two-minute situations,” he said. “It was hard to watch. Everything that you could do poorly, they did in that second half.”
The former Razorback’s criticisms are probably coming from a good place of wanting his alma mater to be the best it can be, but his take still comes across as harsh given everything that happened in the game.
Green didn’t muff two punts. He didn’t fumble the ball twice, either. He also didn’t miss two field goals in crunch time. What he did do is lead an offense that put up 648 yards of total offense in a game that Arkansas should have won. On the “blame” list of the week, Green’s name is near the bottom – not the top.
Stoerner also mentioned a missed touchdown throw in overtime, but the same clip that made OSU fans gush over Green is him hitting Tyrone Broden in the facemask with a great throw, hardly his fault.
Granted, Green completed just 57% of his passes on the day. But it’s also worth the added context that he threw 45 passes on the day, and it’s harder to keep your completion percentage high when you have that many attempts. He also threw an interception, though that was a result of being hit as he threw rather than a bad read.
A number of chunk plays balanced things out for Green’s efficiency numbers, as he still posted an elite 9.1 yards per attempt. He also outperformed Oklahoma State’s 7th-year senior Alan Bowman, who threw for 90 fewer yards on three more attempts than Green.
There will certainly be a learning curve for the Mountain West Conference transfer as the Hogs move into SEC play, but an early road test in a shootout against a ranked team is great experience.
Taylen Green Gets Love from Oklahoma State Fans
It’s understandable that the Poke faithful were unfamiliar with what Arkansas had to offer, considering the two programs hadn’t played each other in 44 years. But Green made a great first impression in Stillwater, quickly earning their respect.
“They started the game with mentioning Petrino called him a young Lamar [Jackson] and I thought, ‘cut the sh*t,’” one OSU fan posted on Twitter. “Took about a quarter for me to change my mind.”
“That was such an incredible throw that should have been caught!” replied another.
“Very Vince Young-y, maybe a better passer,” another Pokes fan said. “I will be following this dude this season.”
It’s rare for a fanbase to be so complimentary of an opposing quarterback, especially going as far as comparing him to college legends like Jackson and Young.
Green, in possessing blazing speed and a big arm with a 6-foot-6 frame, has the kind of physical gifts few other quarterbacks can match. Cowboy fans likened his skill-set to Jackson and Young, but his athletic profile puts him more in the realm of NFL quarterbacks like Florida product Anthony Richardson, who went 4th overall in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Green still needs to prove it on a brutal SEC slate, but his skill set puts him in a great position to join the likes of Stoerner and Dilfer and become an NFL quarterback. Simply put, you can’t teach size and speed, and he’s got it in droves. His former school is also on the brink of becoming big-time, as news broke today that Boise State is joining the Pac-12.
He’ll have the opportunity to appease Stoerner and further impress Dilfer, in person this time, when the Hogs take on the Blazers on Saturday in the home opener at Razorback Stadium.
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Full first hour of Out of Bounds on 103.7 The Buzz, guest starring Clint Stoerner:
The Inside Arkansas crew previews the UAB game:
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More coverage of Arkansas football from BoAS:
