Bobby Petrino: Taylen Green has made 'tremendous strides' during camp

As Arkansas looks to replace starting quarterback KJ Jefferson, the Razorbacks turn to transfer portal addition Taylen Green out of Boise State.

Green has two years worth of valuable experience under his belt and will arrive in the SEC looking to prove his mettle.

But the addition hasn’t been without its tweaks for the Razorbacks. Green came in with some raw mechanics, something offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino noticed and immediately went to work fixing.

“Yeah I think he’s made tremendous strides,” Petrino said on Tuesday. “He did a really nice job in the summer on working on his technique, of his drops, his sets, keeping his front shoulder where it needs to be.

“And we’ve worked really hard on getting him to have more of an over-the-top release. He’s 6-6, he’s an outlier, so his advantage is to be at 6-6. When he first got here he was dropping down and sometimes making himself 6 foot. So I think that’s been tremendous improvement, just his technique and his release and his accuracy have went way up.”

Taylen Green threw for nearly 4,000 yards in two seasons at Boise State, sporting a 5-to-3 touchdown to interception ratio. That will need work, obviously.

But some of the mechanics work alone should yield improvement.

And Petrino has never concerned himself with the completion percentage, which might give others pause when it comes to Taylen Green. In his last season with the Broncos in 2023, Green finished with a 57.1% mark.

“Yeah there’s so many things that go into completion percentage,” Petrino said. “You can’t just judge a quarterback on that, because it starts all 11 guys being on the same page between your pass protection, with your offensive line, between your pass protection and routes with your running backs and tight ends, and then the precision of your receivers with routes.

“I never really, any time I recruit somebody, I really don’t look at the completion percentage. I’m looking at how they throw the ball, how they compete, what their decision-making is as opposed to staying away from percentages.”

The good news for Taylen Green is he should get a game to ease into things before Arkansas hosts No. 17 Oklahoma State in Week 2. Up first is a contest against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Thursday, Aug. 29.