The Arkansas football program has for decades grappled with an existential chicken-or-egg quandary: how do you consistently and successfully recruit elite talent to a campus so far away from where those four- and five-star players grow up?
All things being equal, more 17- and 18-year-olds than not will want to stay closer to their families and friends, after all. This is a problem even in normal times when trying to pluck blue-chippers from their hometowns in states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
That’s the dynamic with all things being equal, however. What happens when Arkansas is trying to recruit these standouts with essentially one hand tied behind its back?