FAYETTEVILLE — The traditional National Signing Day isn’t what it was before recruits couild sign early, but Arkansas did add Ashdown four-star tight end Shamar Easter on Wednesday.

But Arkansas now has 10 recruits from the transfer portal enrolled at Arkansas. Sam Pittman talked about the portal recruits on Wednesday.

“Since we talked, we’ve added three guys on offense and three guys on defense since our December signing,” Pittman said. “Tyrone Broden from Bowling Green, Isaac TeSlaa from Hillsdale College, Trajan Jeffcoat from Missouri, Al [Alfahiym] Walcott from Baylor, Lorando ‘Snaxx’ Johnson from Baylor, and obviously we just talked about Shamar. So we went three offense, three defense in those additions. We signed 20 high school players, I believe that that should be about our minimum. Times change. I think the portal window, the signing date and all that stuff, we still have to look at that, but we need to recruit high school players. So we were fortunate enough to sign 20 there, we’ve signed 10 transfers so far, and we have nine scholarships still remaining.”

Pittman went on to break down the specific positions of those signed from portal.

“Portal-wise, to this point we’ve gone three wide receivers, a running back, a linebacker, two DBs and two d-linemen,” Pittman said. “So, really excited about where we are. Change certainly can be looked at however you like, but I like to look at it as we tried to change getting better. I believe that’s what we’ve done.”

The transfer portal will be open April 15-30 as well and Pittman listed what the Hogs may be looking for at that point.

“Well, as you know, there’s 85 scholarships and we’re at 76,” Pittman said. “Once you get to 76, if you look at it as an NFL pattern, they’re at 53 and they seem to be able to get pretty good players out there. So, I think right now would be the best players available. I’m talking about scholarship-wise, in other words, I’m not saying necessarily the necessity at the position; I’m talking about the number of people at the position. We could use another bigger guy inside on the d-line. We did, because of numbers. Linebacker, might need another one because of numbers. Secondary, we’ve signed eight to this point and we certainly would entertain others there.

“I’d like to look at another guy that can snap the ball, offensively. We’ve got to find maybe one more. In losing guys last year, a bunch of those guys could snap. Obviously Ricky (Stromberg) played center, but (Luke) Jones could snap. And so, we’ve got to continue to look at that on offense. I think we’ve probably got enough running backs. Wide receivers, we may be full there as well, but we’d certainly take a dynamic one. Tight end, we might need an older tight end. I don’t know number-wise that we do. And then quarterbacks, we’ve got enough quarterbacks at this point. So I think that’s where we’d go. I don’t know if that answered your question, but that’s where we’d look at.”

Arkansas signed three wide receivers from the transfer portal with none coming from Power 5 schools. TeSlaa is from Hillsdale College in Michigan, Broden came from Bowling Green and Andrew Armstrong was at Texas A&M-Commerce. Pittman was asked if there was any concern taking players who didn’t have Power 5 experience?

“Well there wasn’t with us or all those other SEC offers they had,” Pittman said. “But .. and I didn’t mean that .. There was a lot of people. … Yes, sure there’s a concern. I played at Pittsburg State, you know. If I’d have went in the portal I would have stayed in the portal. But there’s different guys that play D2 ball. You know we brought in the nose guard from … Big Ridge (John Ridgeway) and he seemed to work out OK.

“There’s always a concern of why did they go there in the first place. And each one of them has their story of why they went there. But talent wise, no, not talent wise. And workouts. I’m excited for y’all to come watch them in the spring because they’re very talented and they’re hungry. That’s the one good thing about recruiting guys that are a little … D2, FCS, you know they haven’t been given academic money. They’re trying to scrape by and are you paying for my books this year coach? And things like that. Where here they’re appreciative of it I guess I could say.”

Arkansas has added Walcott at safety and Johnson at cornerback from Baylor. Both credited Marcus Woodson, the new co-defensive coordinator for being part of the reason they chose the Hogs. Woodson commented on both.

“The first thing that we identified is that they can help us when we watched the film,” Woodson said. “Obviously, they were really good players for Baylor. We reached out to ‘em and touched bases, and over the phone we knew that they were the right fit, but once we got ‘em here on a visit, we knew that they were the right fit, absolutely. They saw that Arkansas and us as a staff was the right fit for them and what they wanted next, and Coach Pittman gave us the blessing to be able to sign ‘em and saw that they were the right fit as well as individuals.”

During the recruiting process, Johnson didn’t have much to say while Walcott seemed to have never met a stranger. Woodson grinned at that observation.

“So we knew we had needs in the secondary,” Woodson said. “We needed to bring some guys in that could make us more competitive with some guys that have started in the past. And they’ve been great additions to the room. You mentioned Al, he’s very outspoken, and he called me the other night just out of the blue and said ‘Coach, Snaxx and I want you to know how happy we are just to be Razorbacks.’ They realized it’s the right fit and they made the right choice. Snaxx, he’s gonna play corner for us. He’s a young man that I’m challenging to become more vocal, you know, just so he can provide some leadership within the room as well. But I also want him to be himself.

“So at the end of the day, I’m excited to have both of them in the room. They fit us, they saw that we fit them, and I’m excited to see what the future has in store for them.Snaxx, he’s gonna play corner for us. He’s a young man that I’m challenging to become more vocal, you know, just so he can provide some leadership within the room as well. But I also want him to be himself. So at the end of the day, I’m excited to have both of them in the room. They fit us, they saw that we fit them, and I’m excited to see what the future has in store for them.”

Arkansas’ Recruits From Portal Enrolled Now

Jacolby Criswell, QB, 6-1, 205, North Carolina

Andrew Armstrong, WR, 6-5, 189, Texas A&M-Commerce

Isaac TeSlaa, WR, 6-4, 210, Hillsdale College

Tyrone Broden, WR, 6-7, 210, Bowling Green

Joshua Braun, OL, 6-6, 335, Florida

John Morgan III, Edge, 6-2, 265, Pitt

Trajan Jeffcoat, DE, 6-4, 269, Missouri

Antonio Grier, LB, 6-1, 223, South Florida

Lorando Johnson, CB, 6-0, 193, Baylor

Alfahiym Walcott, S, 6-2, 220, Baylor