KATV Channel 7 - The Spirit of Arkansas: Coach Petrino's Signing Day Breakdown

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (opening statement) – "We're excited about our fifth recruiting class here. Obviously there's a lot that goes into putting this class together and a lot of people to thank. The first thing I'd like to do is thank the assistant coaches for their hard work and dedication. When you lose some coaches you always worry about recruiting and how that's going to affect it, but the transition was something I thought we handed really well. Coach (Tim) Horton had us very, very well organized, and our new coaches went out and hit the ground hard and worked extremely hard to finish the class off, which I thought we did a very good job of. I'd like to thank the wives for putting up with us, and us being gone all the time, and all their support. They really do a great job on weekends. They come down and go to dinner with parents, and they're as big a part of this as anybody else.

Our administration and our professors give up their weekends, give up their Saturday mornings to come down and meet with the recruits and take them back on campus and show them what it's going to be like to be a student-athlete here at the University of Arkansas, and you really can't say enough about how much that helps us and helps them understand what it is going to be like to be a student here and all that you have to go through to get your degree. Our administrative staff and our support staff did a lot of hard work, and I'd certainly like to thank them. Our players play a big part in the recruiting. I thought our players did a great job of helping us recruit and doing a great job on the weekends, and certainly when we get a recruit on campus and they get around our players, that's really what's deciding where they go. They need to know if this is the atmosphere, this is type of attitude, the type of work ethic you want to be around, and I think our players really showed the recruits what it's like to be a member of our football team. And obviously, the fans do a great job. The fans help us tremendously in recruiting, and there has been a number of young men throughout the process, particularly the guys that came to our home games, that did their official visit on our home games, that commented how the atmosphere was and how the fan support was and how much that played into their decision-making.

When we went out and started this recruiting class off, we're always going to look for certain traits that we want, something that we've been trying to do since we got here. Number one is to continue to work on speed, to continue to work on being faster at all positions. I really feel like our coaches did a great job. This is a fast class, it's a very athletic class, a class of guys that really can change directions and do the things that you really need to do on the football field athletically, and then it's also a longer class. We continue to work on getting taller, what I mainly prefer to call it is longer, so we've got a number of guys that are 6-4, 6-5, 6-6, defensive linemen, that really helps our change in the body type that we've been able to put together here over the last couple years. At this time, I'll just go through what our signing class is. It's alphabetical order, so there's no particular order except for that."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on LB-Vin Ascolese) – "We start out with Vince Ascolese. He's a linebacker, 6-3 220, from North Bergen High School in New Jersey, a young man that I think will be a really good player for us. The first thing you see when you see Vince is how fast he is, how well he plays the game. His grandfather was a football coach up there, just retired this year, kind of a legend, and certainly a guy that taught him a lot about the game of football. We really think a lot of Vince."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on OL-Cordale Boyd) – "Cordale is very physical, a guy that came to camp. We liked him in camp, he did a great job while he was here. We kind of treated Memphis different this year. I put Coach Horton in there, I said, ‘Tim, recruit Memphis just like it's the state of Arkansas,' and Tim went in there and did a great job. We basically got three guys out of there, because we feel like D'Arthur Cowan, the wide receiver from just over the border in Mississippi, is part of Memphis."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on CB-Ray Buchanan Jr.) – "I coached Ray's uncle Bobby Buchanan, he played for me at the University of Louisville. I recruited him there out of Chicago. His dad, Ray Sr., was an NFL corner for 12 years. When I was coaching at Jacksonville, Ray was the best cornerback in the NFL, so I've had a good relationship with him and his family, and I really think Ray will come in here and do really well for us."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on CB-Jared Collins) –"Tulsa continues to be a great place for us to go. As you are all aware, we've been treating Tulsa like it's the state of Arkansas for a number of years now. It's great to get another player out of there, and he's a young man that's really fast. He's the length you want, six foot tall, he's got long arms. I had a chance to watch him practice track the other day, and he can really go. He's really fast, and a guy that we know will come in here and be a good player for us."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on WR-D'Arthur Cowan) – "D'Arthur Cowan is a guy that we treated like he was in Memphis. He's been up on our campus a number of times before he decided to commit to us. He's a guy that can really play the game at wide receiver. He's tall, he can jump, he can elevate quick, he's got great hands and really did a great job catching the long ball. Some guys just have that ability to adjust and change their bodies and see where the ball's coming down, and he had a number of big plays, and they won the state championship in Mississippi."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on TE-Demetrius Dean) – "Everybody is aware of Demetrius. He's in school right now, he enrolled in January. We're going to start him off at tight end. He's obviously a tremendous athlete. Great hands, really excited to have him. He has to be one of the leading all-time receivers in the state of Arkansas. I got to watch him play just about every game when he was a sophomore because my son was on the team, and we know he's going to be a good player for us. He kind of has a chance to be in that D.J. Williams mold."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on DE-Austin Flynn) – "When you saw what we were losing in Jake Bequette and you say, ‘Hey, we need to go out and find a guy that can come in and contribute right away,' you almost found the same mold with the size and speed and strength. We're excited about Austin. He's already on campus. He's working hard, already one of our strongest guys in our weight room, and is extremely athletic. The thing that I like about him, he's got great personality. There's probably not a player on our team that doesn't already know him and enjoy being around him."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on WR-Keon Hatcher) – "Keon is just a youngster. He's just 17 years old. He was at camp, and he basically came to camp to earn a scholarship. He did a great job here at camp. As he was driving home, he called us and we offered him a scholarship. He committed to us early, and then he did a great job of holding off the onslaught when other teams came in and tried to get him from us. So a young man that's very physical, really runs well after the catch. If there was one thing you'd say Keon's number one strength is, he's very, very hard to tackle."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on WR-Eric Hawkins) – "The first thing you say about Eric is speed. He's been timed in a 10.38 100-meters. This year he thinks he can get down to 10.2, would like to break 10.2. Our track coach would really like to have him be able to do both. We'll see if that happens when he gets here, but he's very fast and has soft hands. The one thing you worry about with a guy that's that fast is how's he going to catch the ball, but he adjusts well to the ball, and has very, very soft hands."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on CB-Will Hines) – "Will played both corner and safety in high school. He basically was a corner his junior year, they needed him at safety. We're going to start him off at corner. Another six foot corner with great speed. He also played wide receiver. He was committed to another school when Coach (Paul) Haynes got here. Coach Haynes got involved in the recruiting, and we were able to get that changed and he's now coming to play for us."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on RB-Nate Holmes) – "Nate is really a young man that excites me. He was in our camp. His speed, redirection just jumped out at you in camp. He committed to us early. When you watch his video, now really spend some time watching his video, because he's really exciting. He's got great feet, he's really fast. He's a guy that doesn't have to make you call so many plays, because he can go the distance at any time. I'm really excited. I think he'll be a great player for us."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on DE-Taiwan Johnson) – "Taiwan is a very physical player. He played both defensive end and linebacker. He does a great job rushing the passer, also plays the run real well. He was recruited by just about everybody in the country, and we did a great job of getting him here."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on DE-Brandon Lewis) – "Brandon is another one of those guys that when you talk about length and size, and we're trying to move and get longer at the defensive end position, he really helps us do that. He could play outside linebacker. He's big enough and athletic enough to play outside linebacker. He was in our camp, very young. We made a decision to offer him early, he committed to us. I'll tell you what was impressive about Brandon was when I went to watch him play basketball and practice basketball. I think their team at that time was ranked number one in the country in basketball. I think they're number nine right now. He starts on it at power forward, and man can he run up and down the court, get off the ground very quickly and very high. I think he's got a bright, bright future ahead of him. He's just young, I don't know if he's even shaving yet."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on S-Defonta Lowe) – "Defonta played just about everything at Bearden. He was a great quarterback, very, very hard to tackle, made a lot of plays for them. He's another young man that came to camp and said, ‘I'm coming here to show you guys that I'm good enough to get a scholarship.' And he did just that. He played wide receiver, corner and safety at camp. He certainly jumped off the charts at you as far as his competitiveness and his toughness and then went and just had a great year down there, and we're really excited to have him."

Head Coach Bobby Petrino (on LB-Otha Peters) – "I think Otha will probably have a great chance to come in here and play right away. He's the speed that you need, the combination of strength and speed. He's already physically ready to play, and that gives him an opportunity to play early. Another guy that was committed to another school. Coach (Taver) Johnson and Coach (Kevin) Peoples really got involved in his recruiting, did a great job of getting him and his mother to change their commitment. His mother actually went to the school that we got him to change from, so that's a good job of recruiting by Coach Johnson and Coach Peoples."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on DT-Darius Philon) – "Darius is a young man we've been on the phone with for a long time here in the last two or three days. Coach (Steve) Caldwell has done a great job. He was committed to the University of Alabama. He's a guy that's played both defensive end and defensive tackle. We see him being able to do both; to help us on the edge and also come in and pass rush against guards. He plays the run just as well as he does pass rushing. I think that took us until 2:45 today to get that to come across the fax. We're really fired up about it."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on RB-Donovan Roberts) – "Coach (Tim) Horton went in there and got Donovan out of Oklahoma's home town. We offered him early and he committed to us early. Oklahoma came in and offered him and he held out. He did a great job of fighting them off and sticking to his commitment. He's a guy that really excites you because of his toughness. He's going to make us a tougher team just by the way he plays the game and goes about his business every day. In his junior year, he had a five-overtime game and carried the ball 51 times. So, we know he's durable and very tough."

Head coach-Bobby Petrino (on ATH-Jeremy Sprinkle) – "Jeremy came to our camp. In our first practice we put him at defensive end. The second practice we put him at tight end. The third practice we put him at wide receiver, and he looked good doing all three of them. He's a very good basketball player. He scored 21 points the other night. We're not sure exactly where he's going to play. We're going to start him off at tight end. We also know he can play wide receiver. I guess he would be a taller (TE) Chris Gragg. That's the type of athleticism he has. We're excited to have him."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on LB-A.J. Turner) – "A.J. is a tremendous athlete. He ran around with all these young freshmen on our basketball team. I think him and Ky Madden are really good friends. He grew up playing all kinds of AAU basketball with him. We really feel like he has great development potential ahead of him. Once he quits playing all that basketball, gets in the weight room, gets here for a year or two, he's going to be the weight that you need to play linebacker in the SEC. He already can run and hit. He just needs some pounds on his body. But, he is very impressive on the basketball court also. I think he's on the number one ranked team in the state of Arkansas."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on OL-Jeremy Ward) – "Jeremy is another young man that came to our camp. He was very impressive in camp. He committed to us and it did a great job of recruiting for us. He's got a great personality and really helped in recruiting these other guys to come play for us. We know he's going to be a good football player. He played tackle in high school. We'll move him inside and he'll be either a guard or a center for us."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on RB-Jonathan Williams) – "We're really fired up about Jonathan. At one time, he was committed to another university. We worked hard at that. He came up here for his official visit during one of our home games and basically said that the atmosphere, crowd and everything about our home game was what made the decision for him, it was something he really wants to be a part of. He's a very good running back, very athletic. He'll catch the ball extremely well out of the backfield. He's already bigger than 210 right now. He's already done a great job in the weight room after football season."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on WR-Demetrius Wilson) – "This is a guy I'm really fired up about. When we went out and looked at our receiving corps, we said we needed to get one junior college player. We feel like he is a combination of speed, great hands and be the best route runner that will join us right off the top. He's very polished running his routes, getting in and out of breaks. He played for a guy that I've coached against for a long time. He really knows how to develop wide receivers and really knows a lot about the passing game."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on DE-JaMichael Winston) – "He's another one of those guys that's tall, lean and very fast. He's a very good pass rusher, but one of the things that impresses me most about JaMichael is his ability to play the run and how much he likes defending the run. He uses his hands well. He gets off blocks and can really close. I think if there's one thing that you would say is his best attribute, you'd say he can close on the quarterback and close on the ball carrier. He redirects very well and bends very well."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on DE-Deatrich Wise Jr.) – "This is another young guy that is going to get better and better. He's 6-5, 236. We had him in camp, we offered him early in camp. Coach John L. Smith was one of the first guys to start recruiting him. John L. has had a great track record. He was so young and didn't play a lot during his junior year, but Coach Smith said he was going to be a real good player. He came out in his senior year and had a great year. He's going to do nothing but get better. He's young and has big hands. I think he wears a size 18 or 19 shoe, so he's got great growth potential ahead of him. I can't say enough about the hard work our coaches did in putting this class together."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the signing class) – "Coach (Tim) Horton, as he always does, was very organized and we appreciate all the help we got from everybody that played a part."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the possibility of adding one more signee) – "There's always that chance. We're certainly going to keep pounding at it and working at it."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on if Demetrius Dean's commitment will count toward 2011 or 2012) – "I'm not sure how that works. I know that he enrolled here in January. He obviously was part of our signing class a year ago. He had to do some things to be eligible and got everything done. We're real excited to have him. He's a great athlete. We had our first mat drill, get up at 5:30 in the morning and work out, this morning, and his athletic ability just jumps off the field at you."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the chance that JaMichael Winston would not sign with Arkansas) – "Well, you're always worried. The thing that JaMichael did is look Coach (Steve) Caldwell in the eye and look me in the eye and say ‘Coach, I'm coming to the University of Arkansas, and when I give you my work, I keep my word.' So, that was something that was comforting for us and he certainly is a man of his word, there's no doubt about that."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the importance of signing receivers) – "I'm excited about our receiving corps. When you look at Cobi Hamilton coming back and doing what he's done throughout his career, he's certainly going to be the leader of it. Javontee Herndon came on and got better and better as the year went on. He had a big game against Mississippi State and caught four balls. Julian Horton is coming back, as well as Marquel Wade. We've got guys on campus that we're really fired up about. We did feel like losing that production between Jarius Wright, Joe Adams and Greg's (Childs) first three years, that it was an area of emphasis. It was an area that we really addressed, and I'm fired up to get Demetrius Wilson. He was the guy that we targeted from the junior college that we really needed."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on where Jeremy Sprinkle will play) – "We're going to start him off at tight end. We need to find some things out physically, how he does blocking from that position and be able to run routes and catch the ball. It's funny when you put the video on, he actually looks like he could line up and be a 6-6, 220-pound wide receiver. But, we'll find that out when we get him in here."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the class as a whole) – "I think it's a real good class. When we look at last year's class, we were real heavy on the offensive tackle position, so we felt like we needed to add a couple guards and we did that. We really felt like when you continue to recruit pass rushers and continue to recruit defensive linemen, it makes everybody else's job easier. We felt like there were a couple decisions that we had to make, whether we took a defensive end or defensive tackle. We finished strong today in getting a tackle. But those ends are all guys like when you watch the New York Giants play, you get to third down and put four defensive ends on the field. They're very difficult to block and they're going to be long and fast and athletic like that. Linebacker was a position that we needed to address with the graduation of Jerry (Franklin) and Jerico (Nelson), and we really feel like we hit that very well. Then, we needed to recruit a couple running backs for a year from now. You've got the three guys coming back that are all seniors, so we had to address that. We decided not to take a quarterback. That was a decision that we made early in the recruiting process. We feel good about the three quarterbacks we have. Obviously, there was a little bit of discussion there when Tyler (Wilson) was considering staying or going pro. We're happy he stayed."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on having more from the state of Arkansas) – "You always wish you had more. When you look back at the history, it's one of those things that yearly you wonder how many of those players are we going to have here. A year ago, we had seven guys, four from right in this area. You have to understand that we considered Memphis this year to be part of the state of Arkansas and we've treated Tulsa that way. I'm really happy with the way that Tim Horton went in to Memphis and got three very good players out of there and that helps us a lot. We haven't been able to get guys out of Memphis until this year."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the early commitments) – "You always tell a guy if you really know where you want to go, let's commit and get it done so you can help us get better players to play next to you. This group did a great job. They were very excited about doing it. We had the one big weekend, where a lot of our commitments were in on that weekend and I thought they did a good job for us."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on Darius Philon and JaMichael Winston signing together) – "They were teammates on a very good football team. I think they only gave up nine points a game, or something like that. When it came down to it, they said they wanted to play together, so I think JaMichael helped us a lot in getting Darius to sign with us."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on initial reaction to Jonathan Williams) – "I remember seeing him on a Thursday night game with Allen on television. It was my week to call him, so as he's running across the goal line, I decided I'd give him a call right now and say that was a great run. He's very impressive because of his size, the way his hips are. He can move his hips and catch the balls that are thrown behind him without having to turn completely around. He impresses me as much as catching the ball out of the backfield and running after the catch as he does lining up behind the quarterback."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on if he ever turned down a great defensive end) – "You never turn down a great player, period. We're a little heavy on defensive end, there's no doubt about that. When you looked at it, you said ‘Okay, we're losing Jake (Bequette). We got Tenarius (Wright) coming back and Chris Smith coming back, who finished the year strong for us.' We wanted to get a junior college defensive end because I thought we could get a guy that could come in mid-year and get in the rotation, get in a position to play right away. A year ago, when we started out the season, we felt great about defensive end and then two guys went out. That's a position you have to play well to do well in this conference."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the possibility of true freshmen playing right away) – "I always tell them you have to prepare yourself both physically and mentally to come in and play as a true freshman. That's how they have to approach it. They have to work hard. They get ready physically. That on Friday afternoon, instead of taking a day off, they're in there grinding and working away. Obviously, it will always come down to number one are they physically ready to play, number two are they mentally ready to play, that's a hard one because every time they line up now, the guy next to them and across from them was also the best player at their high school. So, you never know how they're going to react to the speed. There will be more volume on offense, more volume on defense that they have to learn. So you have to see if they're a good learner or not a good learner. Then, the third factor is always if we have a need. There are certain areas on our team that we have a need."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the returning players getting started with workouts) ­ - "We just started workouts, so it's mainly change of direction and quickness. (OT) Brey Cook is healthy and ready to go. He's back to doing everything in the weight room and in conditioning. (LB) Brock Haman is back full speed, ready to go. I think we're pretty healthy right now. We'll see how it is when we get to spring ball."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on WR-Dorial Green-Beckham) – "We wish him good luck. As I've said before, we're really fired up about our class and what we have coming back. We've led the SEC in passing the last three years, so we feel good about not only how we recruit, what we do recruiting at the quarterback and wide receiver position. A lot of it is development and when they get here, they have to be able to get in that weight room and grind during that offseason. They have to improve physically and we've been able to do that very well here."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on the one part of this class he is most proud of) ­– "I'm not really good with the ‘most' or the ‘biggest' or the ‘best.' I'm just overall pleased with where we're at. Overall pleased with how our coaches went out. We hit the things we were looking for. We prioritized what we needed first. I thought we stuck to that. I thought we did a good job of evaluating and finishing strong. Anytime you can finish strong and get it done, we felt like we hit what we needed to do."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on trying to have a better recruiting class than the year before) – "That's always yet to be seen. I think there's one thing that I want to make sure everybody understands, we feel like we're strong with what we have on our football team right now. I like our players, our athleticism. I like our speed. I think this class has a chance to come in and really add to that. They're going to have to compete. They're going to have to be very competitive and improve and get better when they get here to be able to get on the field. What I think makes me happy is, there were times when you go out and recruit a bunch of guys and think most of these guys are going to have to play for us next year. They're going to have to get on the field right away and provide depth. Now, it's come in and see what type of competitor you are. We'll give you the opportunity, but you have to go take it."

Head coach Bobby Petrino (on needs for next year) – "It's too early to think about what you need for next year. We've already started on next year. Our coaches have done a good job already getting on the sophomores and juniors. We have ideas on who's leaving and who's graduating. But, then you have to get into spring ball and say okay what really defines your needs for next year."