Three of Razorback football’s all-time greats joined David Bazzel at the Little Rock Touchdown Club Monday to reminisce about the program’s success during their overlapping run on the Hill, analyze the Hogs’ loss to LSU and discuss how Arkansas can return to contention.
Former homegrown Hogs Jarius Wright (Warren), Joe Adams (Little Rock, CAC) and D.J. Williams (Little Rock, CAC) joined Bazzel, the club’s founder and himself a former Hog star, to simply talk some football. Each of Monday’s guests left Fayetteville with their names etched on national awards and in the UA record book, and each went on to play in the NFL.
Williams, a morning anchor for KARK-TV in Little Rock and co-host of The Zone on 103.7 The Buzz and the popular 4th & 5 podcast, was a Razorback from 2007-10. Williams played his final three college seasons for former head coach Bobby Petrino, who returned to Fayetteville this fall as offensive coordinator. At the end of the 2010 season, Williams was named the recipient of the Mackey Award, recognizing the nation’s top tight end, and the Disney Spirit Award, honoring college football’s most inspirational player. He was drafted in the fifth round of the 2011 NFL draft by the Packers and played all or a part of five seasons in the league.
Wright and Adams were a year behind Williams and part of Petrino’s impressive first Arkansas recruiting class. Wright is now an assistant coach at Sylvan Hills, and Adams is on the Jacksonville staff. From 2008-11, they helped lead the Hogs to a Sugar Bowl appearance as part of the 2011 Bowl Championship Series and a win over Kansas State in the 2012 Cotton Bowl. The Hogs went 21-5 over the course of their junior and senior seasons.
Wright helped open the Warren wide receiver pipeline to Fayetteville. He holds the Arkansas record for receptions (168) and receiving yards (2,934), the latter of which also ranks fifth all-time in the SEC. He hauled in 24 career receiving touchdowns as a Hog, good for second in school history and tied for 15th all-time in the SEC. Wright also had nine games where his receiving totals topped 100 yards, which ties for second in school history. He was a 2012 fourth-round (118th overall) pick by the Vikings. His NFL career lasted eight productive years, six in Minnesota and two with the Panthers.
From left: Wright, Adams, Williams and Bazzel. (Photo courtesy of LRTDC)
Adams was a standout receiver himself, earning consensus first-team all-SEC and all-America honors in 2011, but he is remembered more for his electric punt returns. Adams averaged 16.9 yards per punt return his senior year, none more memorable than his 60-yard return for a score in the Hogs’ 49-7 rout of Tennessee on Nov. 12, 2011, in Fayetteville. Recalling the play to Bazzel, Adams quipped that Razorback Stadium must still be shaking. The game was televised nationally on ESPN, and Gus Johnson provided a memorable call; Adams’ return included multiple reverse-field moves and seven broken tackles, and it is still considered the most electric in college football history.
Adams’ 51-yard punt return for a score later that season helped solidify the Cotton Bowl win over Kansas State. Following the 2011 season, Adams was the recipient of the inaugural Johnny “The Jet” Rodgers Award, which recognized the game’s top return specialist. He was taken by the Panthers in the fourth round of the 2012 draft (the 104th overall pick), and his pro playing career last six seasons.
Through his podcasts and social media posts, Williams has become known for his honest assessments of Razorback football. Though the disappointment of the LSU loss still hung heavy in the air, he said the Hogs can still finish strong and give Hog fans something to be proud of. Grasping the complexities of Petrino’s offense takes time, and each of the former players noted that past Petrino QBs at Arkansas, such as Ryan Mallet and Tyler Wilson, had the luxury of redshirt years and/or simply waiting their turn. In this era of NIL and the transfer portal, that luxury is generally no longer available, and it wasn’t for current tough-as-nails starter Taylen Green, who has shown flashes of brilliance after transferring this year from Boise State.
The trio of former Hog greats agreed that Green is still working to master Petrino’s offense.
“Things Petrino did with us are still being implemented,” Williams said. “Taylen… he’s just missing it. He’s got to trust the process.”
Adams said he’d like to see Petrino give Green more quick reads and cited the 2010 game at Auburn when Wilson replaced an injured Mallet and threw for 332 yards and four TDs in a shootout loss to Cam Newton and the Tigers.
“We did a lot of quick plays for Tyler — got the ball out of his hands early,” he said.
Williams said the Hogs struggled to handle success during the bye week. After the big win over No. 4 Tennessee, some national pundits included Arkansas as a potential dark-horse playoff pick. When you start listening to everyone whisper in your ear how good you are, he said, “You stop focusing on the little things that got you there.”
LSU, though, was simply the better team on Saturday night, he added. “Still, there were so many opportunities. That game still could’ve been won.”
The former players agreed that NIL and the portal have fundamentally changed the game. Wright warned of NIL’s potential to divide locker rooms, and Williams warned of the transfer portal encouraging players to quit on their teams. All three agreed that a cap on NIL payments is necessary.
The players also agreed on what it meant to have home-state players leading the Hogs.
“If you’re a Razorback from this state, you’ll be set for life,” Bazzel said.
Asked if Arkansas can bounce back, Adams said he thought they could.
“The kids just gotta buy-in,” Adams said. “Coach P taught us when adversity hits, fight through it.”
Other tidbits from Monday’s LRTDC meeting:
- Adams labeled his punt return against Tennessee and his fourth-down catch for a score against LSU — the latter of which helped seal a win that sent the Hogs to the Sugar Bowl — as 1A and 1B on his list of favorite memories as a player. During a time out before the fourth down call in Little Rock, Adams said Petrino asked the players what they wanted to do. Williams said Adams immediately piped up, “Let’s throw that thing up,” to which Petrino responded, “Let’s go win the damn game.” Adams proceeded to juke LSU freshman Tyrann Mathieu, the future Honey Badger, and Mallet “threw it up” for a score.
- While his former teammates were bitten by the coaching bug, Williams said it has yet to happen to him. He did note, however, that “if they [the UA] called me today [to coach tight ends], I’d be gone.”
- Wright said while he and Adams had been involved with the Arkansas Elite 7-on-7 club, it was former teammate Mallet who lured him into coaching when the latter became head coach at White Hall in 2022. Williams jokingly likened Mallet’s coaching style to that of Petrino.
- Adams on John L. Smith: “I know he gets a lot of flak, but he was actually a good coach.” Smith was a veteran former head coach (Louisville, Michigan State) who was on Petrino’s staff at Arkansas. He was named interim head coach for the 2012 season after Petrino’s infamous motorcycle ride earlier that year led to the latter’s firing. “John L.,” as he became known, has shouldered much of the blame from fans for the Hogs’ 4-8 collapse that season.
- Adams: “Special teams are very important. One play can change the outcome of a game.”
- Williams said Petrino earned his reputation as an intense perfectionist, but players respected him. “Respect… with a little bit of fear,” he quipped. Players developed deeper personal relationships with their position coaches, he added, but “we felt like they all knew us and loved us.”
- Adams and Wright said they attended several spring practices earlier this year and noted that their old coach has mellowed. “He’s not the fierce guy he was,” Wright said of what he saw. “It’d be good for this team of they get some of the old Coach P.”
- More from Williams on Petrino’s coaching temperament: “Unfortunately, he had a big slice of humble pie when he left here, and that’s been a change for the better.”
- While praising the work of current go-to receiver Anthony Armstrong, Wright quipped, “No disrespect, but the [wide receiver] group up there right now is not us.”
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