Recruits excited about Petrino hiring, exit interviews finished

FAYETTEVILLE — Sam Pittman said the hiring of Bobby Petrino to run the Arkansas offense has generated recruiting excitement. Petrino, the former Arkansas head coach from 2008-2011, was at Texas A&M last season, but now will be calling plays for Pittman’s offense. “Well, I mean we were trying to keep it quiet,” Pittman said.

“But, you know, I was all in on these player evals and leaving and all that. We were trying to keep it quiet. Y’all let them know, you know, that he was coming back.

Which always happens by the way. I’m not being negative, just happens. So, I was getting a lot of calls.

Didn’t have to call them, I was getting a lot of calls. There was a lot of excitement about it. But we didn’t have to worry about calling the kids, they were calling us.

” Petrino and Pittman met with the media on Thursday before they hit the recruiting trail together on Friday. Petrino was asked what type quarterback he prefers for his system? “I mean Ryan (Mallett) was pretty perfect because Ryan was as smart as you could possibly be,” Petrino said. “He understood the game, he understood his players around him.

He understood when you made a call what you were thinking. He was really a guy that you could anticipate what he was going to do. You know, when you saw the coverage and the play call, he would probably go the way he did in practice.

“Lamar (Jackson) was, was the same way. Lamar was a guy that really studied the game plan and really knew what he wanted to do, what we wanted to do as a staff. Both of them could get you out of a bad play.

You’re not always going to hit the call as a play caller, and you can be really, really aggressive when your quarterback can come out and say, ‘Aw yeah, this play-action isn’t going to work because they’re blitzing two guys off the left side’ and change the play or the protection for you. And that’s what those guys allowed you to do. You can just call it up and have a lot of freedom in your thoughts of being aggressive, and then if it wasn’t worth a darn, they can get you out of it and get from a bad play into a good play.

They the freedom they give you as a play caller it really helps. ” Petrino was asked if he has gotten to look at film of Jacolby Criswell and Malachi Singleton at this time? “I’ve had a chance to watch their video and see some of their practice video, some of their game video and see things that they can do,” Petrino said. “Obviously you like the talent that you see there, arm strength and mobility and different things they can do.

You really don’t know a lot until you get out on the practice field and start practicing with them, so I look forward to that. The rules are such now that we have time to meet with them when we come back from Christmas and get in the classroom with them, so it’ll be fun to see how much they understand about the game of football. ” Pittman was also asked about his talks with KJ Jefferson, who is rumored to be on his way to the transfer portal.

“I’d rather not really answer that out of respect for KJ and things of that nature,” Pittman said. “KJ’s given to the university good years and lot of records and things of that nature, whatever he wants to do we’ll be supportive of it. ” Pittman also has completed his exit interviews Thursday.

“We had a recruiting meeting at 2 o’clock, I was done about 1:55 and I’m completed,” Pittman said. “We went Monday, Tuesday… No, Tuesday, Wednesday and today and got through however many it was. Maybe 100 guys or whatever it was, maybe a little more.

So, we are through. You talk about the portal and all this kind of stuff. I feel really where we are at on the football team, but obviously things can change because of the fluidity with phone calls to talking to coaches and all this kind of stuff.

We’ve got a great university here, great situation here. Arkansas Edge is helping us tremendously. We want to keep the guys on the team that we want to keep, beautiful they don’t want to the portal is open and we will go out and replace them.

” The Hogs will be on the road recruiting Friday. .