Numbers Look Bleak for Arkansas High School Football’s Reputation

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Anyone who works in data knows numbers can be pretty much anything you need them to be.

For instance, divorce rates in the United States have fallen to around 33%, which is promoted as a good thing considering at the turn of the century it was close to 50%. However, as a comedian once put it, that means marriages ending in death went up from 50% to 67%, which is a dark way of looking at things.

Such a dark perspective is fitting for the state of Arkansas football. Not the Razorbacks, which finally have something to look forward to this season with the return of Bobby Petrino after more than a decade of bad to meh football with the exception of one or flashes of hope in the record book.

No, this one is about the high school football scene. When the NFL draft rolls around, two lists inevitably get generated.

One shows how many players were drafted from each Division I school. The other shows how many players were chosen based on the state where they played their high school ball.

This year Arkansas earned the dubious distinction of being one of 11 states to not produce an NFL draft pick. That seems like a lot of real estate not producing elite football talent, however, when the list is broken down there are two stark aberrations:
Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Nebraska and Arkansas.

Considering outside of Nebraska all those other states are expected to be high school football wastelands, it’s not a good look for the Natural State. It’s yet another data point for Arkansas coach Sam Pittman to point toward in addition to the Razorbacks’ struggles in NIL for why the job is so difficult and expectations should be tamped down.

It stands in strong contrast to how most Hogs fans feel. Their usual take is the best way to get the most out of the Razorbacks is to have a lot of the best players be from Arkansas because wearing the uniform means more to them so they play at a higher level.

There have been 32 Razorbacks drafted over the past decade. Of those, nine were from Arkansas, which amounts to less than one per year.

However, that same span amounts to what is considered the darkest time in the program’s past 70 years. If numbers are extracted from the last period of legitimate success, which spans the Bobby Petrino years, there is a dramatic shift.

In his short span that covered only four years, Petrino saw 13 Razorbacks drafted into the NFL. Of those, 10 were from Arkansas and two were from the Texas side of Texarkana. That’s a tight net with a lot of talent that won 34 games, including multiple Top 10 finishes to the regular season.

Go back the previous two seasons to the end of the Houston Nutt era and another 11 Razorbacks are drafted to the NFL. Of those, seven were from Arkansas and helped the Hogs win 18 games in the final two years.

So, in a six year span, 45 Razorbacks were drafted from teams that won 52 games and 17 were from Arkansas with another two from Texarkana. In the 11 seasons since, Arkansas has won only 60 games and has seen 11 fewer players drafted, including a 70% drop in local players getting drafted.

In all that time, only three players from Northwest Arkansas have been drafted, however that’s currently the region of the state most emphasized in recruiting the past few years. Seven came from South Arkansas and if the Texas side of Texarkana counts on a technicality, that number grows to nine. Another 11 come from Little Rock or Conway, although it should be noted the last to be drafted from that area was Hunter Henry back in 2016.

Since that time, other than Dre Greenlaw, every Razorback picked in the NFL draft has come from South Arkansas. Despite this, it’s an area where coaches have openly complained of having very little contact from Razorbacks coaches as Missouri has begun to firmly plant its flag in the region.

The good news for Arkansas, at least on the offensive side of the ball, is Petrino has a track record of being comfortable going into Central and South Arkansas and not only landing talent, but developing it to its fullest.

It may take a while to undo the momentum Eli Drinkwitz has built in South Arkansas and several Division I schools have managed in Central Arkansas, but if he sticks around for a few years, there’s a good chance the Razorbacks can help the state turn around its recently earned reputation as one of America’s high school football wastelands.

HOGS FEED: 

• Arkansas, Mississippi State unlikely heroes SEC will count upon to save league from Texas, Missouri after poor scheduling

• Calipari’s methodical approach sharp contrast to Musselman

• NFL Draft paints crystal clear picture of Arkansas football’s main problem

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