Sam Pittman praises progress from young wide receivers

No. 10 Arkansas has started the season off with a pair of wins despite not facing a cupcake opponent like many of the unbeaten teams out there. If the Razorbacks hope to keep stringing together wins, though, they’ll need to continue to find better offensive balance. Could young wide receivers be key?

Right now Arkansas is relying quite heavily on a run game that features quarterback KJ Jefferson and running back Raheim Sanders.

To be fair, those two have been elite, too. They’ve combined for 402 yards and four touchdowns on 81 carries (5.0 yards per carry). But the Hogs currently rank just 102nd nationally in passing offense.

How the team would replace last season’s star receiver Treylon Burks was a key offseason question.

To this point, there’s no clear answer.

Spotting the need to beef up the receiving corps was something head coach Sam Pittman obviously did early in his tenure, though. To that end, he signed four four-star receiver prospects in the last two recruiting classes, as well as a pair of three-stars. None have really seen much action yet.

“I would have no problem putting them in the game, it’s just the situation hasn’t quite been there yet where we’re able to do that,” Pittman explained this week.

Arkansas needs young receivers to start emerging

So far the Razorbacks have gotten by with relatively paltry passing game numbers. It’s probably unrealistic to expect that to continue through the SEC West gauntlet that will begin in earnest after this week’s tune-up against Missouri State.

After that game Arkansas has a road trip to No. 24 Texas A&M, a home game against No. 2 Alabama, a road trip to a Mississippi State team that could well be ranked when they meet, a road trip to No. 12 BYU and then a road trip to Auburn.

That’s a murderer’s row stetch. One the Razorbacks would be much more likely to survive should the passing game begin to take shape.

About those young guys…

Slew of highly rated young targets ready to roll

“You’ve got (Jaedon) Wilson, (Bryce) Stephens, (Quincey) McAdoo — I really like McAdoo — (Sam) Mbake is coming on, and he’s going to play more special teams-wise,” Pittman said. “(Isaiah) Sategna, I like him a lot. We had big plans for him. He rolled his ankle yesterday, I don’t know exactly where he’s going to be on that.

“Those guys are good players and, yes, we’re trying to (get them involved). We just haven’t really had the situation really right yet that, even Ketron Jackson, who I think’s a really good player, we haven’t got him the reps really yet that I would like to.”

Jackson and Wilson were four-star prospects in the 2021 class, Setagna and Mbake four-stars in 2022.

Again, that they haven’t been involved more yet hasn’t proven problematic; Arkansas has taken care of business against a ranked Cincinnati squad and SEC East opponent South Carolina.

Better to be lamenting lack of playing time for younger players when you’re still producing results.

“Those are good problems at times,” Pittman said. “To answer your question, I’m really high on McAdoo and Sategna and Mbake, they’re all three really good players. And of course, we have the other guys that aren’t playing with Stephens and Wilson, who I like as well.”