Sam Pittman excited by growth of Ty Washington at tight end

Going into the 2023 season, one position group Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman is confident in are the tight ends. In particular, he’s happy with the depth and options that unit is going to give the offense under new offensive coordinator Dan Enos.

In this deep unit, Tyrus Washington has stood out to Pittman already in Fall Camp.

“He’s gonna help us,” Sam Pittman said. “I mean, I think we’ve got a pretty good tight end room. I think when you look at Francis [Sherman] and Luke [Hasz] and [Var’keyes] Gumms and Tyrus and [Nathan] Bax, there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity to get into 12 personnel.”

A former three-star recruit in the Class of 2022, Washington has rapidly developed for Arkansas. In particular, he is proving to be an excellent pass catcher, according to Pittman.

“There’s going to be a lot of opportunity to get him to play, to get on the field, but Tyrus has made some hard, hard catches. He’s getting better at his blocking. [He’s] got a great attitude, playing hard, but the thing that I’m noticing more is he’s getting open and catching contested passes.”

As a freshman in 2022, Washington had a relatively quiet season, only catching one pass. That completion was for a touchdown in the Liberty Bowl against Kansas. That bowl game was his fifth of the season but he was still able to preserve his redshirt thanks to a new rule allowing bowls to not count toward redshirt eligibility.

For the most part, Washington played special teams last season.

Sam Pittman praised the Arkansas quarterbacks

KJ Jefferson comes into the season as the clear starter at Arkansas. Still, early in Fall Camp head coach Sam Pittman was thrilled with the entire unit.

“I thought they did well. [Cade] Fortin had some nice throws in there,” Pittman said.

“Jacolby [Criswell], we’ll have to ask KJ because he knows more about it than I do, but it seemed Jacolby was a little more relaxed or confident, I don’t know the word, today than he ever was in the spring. I feel like the summer and the guys doing the OTAs on their own helped him.

“Lot of it has to do with talent, lot of it has to do with what my mind’s telling me motivation wise or confidence wise. I felt like he was night and day from where he was in the spring. I felt like he knew what he was doing and he made some checks and things of that nature that he might not have done in spring ball. Threw the ball well. Got a really strong arm.”