What Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman said about recruiting out of the Memphis area
NASHVILLE — Arkansas Razorbacks football coach Sam Pittman has expressed his desire to recruit more players out of the Memphis area.
The matter was raised Wednesday during SEC Media Days when a reporter asked Pittman if the presence of Razorbacks offensive lineman Patrick Kutas (Christian Brothers High School) highlighted his drive to recruit more players from Memphis and western Tennessee.
"West Memphis, Memphis area, we're going there every year," Pittman said at the podium. "The more we get, the better off those kids do, the more we'll be able to be welcome back in there."
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Kutas, defensive lineman Eric Gregory (Memphis, IMG Academy) and cornerback Jaylen Lewis (Brownsville) are the only players on the Razorbacks' roster from the west Tennessee area.
Dion Stutts, a standout athlete at Memphis University School and a 2024 Arkansas recruit, died last month in an ATV accident.
Arkansas' 2023 recruiting class is ranked 22nd in the country by 247Sports, and early projections have ranked its 2024 recruiting class 17th. Luckily for Pittman, Arkansas fans were out in full force in late December for the triple overtime victory over Kansas in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis.
"Certainly you can see even at the Liberty Bowl, the following that we have from that area of the country," Pittman said. "And even though it's not home, per se, it's home for a lot of Memphis, Tennessee people to be Razorbacks."
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Sam Pittman on Arkansas football recruiting importance in Memphis
