Ty'Kiest Crawford visited last weekend per Tiger Bait

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I also assumed he is an OT

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Yes

Crawford 247 profile

I’d like to point out my misunderstandings of the past, first........I don’t know shite about recruiting anymore:

Am I wrong to think that a 6-5 335 OT will just be moved inside to be a guard? But now he’s got a leverage issue with 6-2 and 6-3 DTs of the same technique and ability.

I understand that miles recruited guards to play tackle and that O/Creg might do the opposite.

And if that is the case, I guess I’m cool with it.....again, since I don’t really know more than 2% of what the coaches know. I assume that tackles in our new offense Need to be a bit more long and mobile ( 6-5 to 6-7 starting st 290) on the outside and the road grader tackles are now a thing of the past.

We've never stopped pursuing him. Been an Arky lean & lead from pretty much the beginning, but despite that he's 'open' to others, with LSU being at or near top of the list.

What I mean by 'open' is that while he's listening, and isn't turning us or any other SEC school away Arky is his choice. We've never been 'on the cusp' of flipping him... YET. This kid has the chance to be the 'complete package'; has all the tools that need refining. That's as good as it gets in OL recruiting.

Arky being a dumpster fire isn't really going to be the thing that sways him. He wants to play in a Chad Morris offense because he knows that showcases and trains a OT to be most NFL ready and he loves the town of Fayetteville (as much as I hate them, Fayetteville is nice- Arky fans are just fricktards).

We're definitely in this now due to the new offense. The key now is to convince him, since offensive styles are comparable, that Cregg gives him better prep/coaching than Dustin Fry. Fry is viewed as a 'system guy'; he's been with Morris since he was at Clemson (Fry's alma mater as a C). So it's not superbowl rings, or years of experience; it's can Cregg convince him he's 'a modern offense OL coach', which Fry certainly can.

Morris was on him early before many schools were as hot on him. Carthage is a HS that coaches kids up very well and both Morris and Fry are 'in' with them from their SMU days. He was on our radar definitely, and pursued, but not like a must-have OT (that early). That's how Arky got the upper hand. And they still consider him a must-keep, they will fight mightly to keep him.

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I wonder what his connection to Arkansas is. There has to be something there with all the offer he has from big 5 schools.

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It's not a personal connection, something his family/influencers have supposedly. The kid himself isn't married to Arkansas, he's taking visits. The things he says also shows he's definitely always shopping

I'd love for us to get the kid to come here. We need as many OT prospects as we can get and I think the possibility of early playing time is there for any quality OTs.

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osted by GeeOH on 9/18/19 at 7:54 am to RichardT I wonder what his connection to Arkansas is. There has to be something there with all the offer he has from big 5 schools

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Morris coaches in the area for a couple of years. He was head coach at Elysian Fields High School in the late 90’s. Took them to back to back state championships. He knows Scott Surratt, Head Coach at Carthage High School, well from coaching high school in East Texas. I’m sure Surratt has spoken highly of Morris and how they are friends and Crawford has heard that and is comfortable with that trusting his coach. Morris has an “in” with a lot of the Texas High School coaches and they are familiar with him. They also have a guy on staff, Jeff Traylor, at Arkansas that was head coach at Gilmer High School in East Texas that won a couple of state championships not too long ago. He is also friends with Surrat so that helps too.

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I wonder what his connection to Arkansas is. There has to be something there with all the offer he has from big 5 schools.

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Couple of things. One, on the football side Chad Morris is a former Texas HS coach with a lot of good connections still in the state. He knows that for Arkansas to return to relevance they have to recruit Texas like they used to, and that's a focus for him.

Two, the University of Arkansas implemented a very favorable tuition rate a few years ago specifically for out-of-state kids coming from Texas. Doesn't matter a ton for a football scholarship kid, but what it has done is turn Fayetteville into an Ozark mini-Texas. There are almost more students from the state of Texas attending Arkansas now than there are in-state kids from Arkansas. Source: I live in Fayetteville and my neighbor is an older, longtime tenured professor at the university. Also, my whole family lives in the Austin area in Texas, and several of my nephew's classmates and friends are either already on campus as Arkansas students or plan to be in the coming years. My nephew has a visit planned this fall.

That means that a football recruit, although the tuition rate doesn't matter, will find a sense of feeling at home with all the other Texas kids (perhaps even from their own friends at school) already enrolled. Morris is going to be able to recruit Texas, and the university is doing everything they can to help him.

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I think LSU's dream finish would be OT
Crawford
Dumervil

DT
Guillory

RB
Evans

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THAT would be an amazing haul and class.

Eh... the number is really 6 with the 7th being a true OG/OT capable OL (Myron Cunningham, 2nd team OT, playing OG now).

Some teams/coaches believe in playing inexperienced OTs as OGs until the time comes so they overload on OTs. UGA is one (both under Richt and Kirby). I wish we would move this direction personally.

Morris will probably move that way; Fat Bert was a "an OL is an OL" guy and saw OGs and OTs as interchangeable (sound familiar?).