Billy Ray Smith Jr. liked what he saw when he strolled around Notre Dame’s snowy campus as a high school senior in 1978.
Smith, who died recently at age 64, had been a state champion in football and student body president at Plano High in Texas. The best of the best from each corner of the nation wanted him. That included Oklahoma, Texas, Southern Cal and even Yale knocking at his door.
Notre Dame had won the national championship the year prior — its 10th in program history and third since Arkansas’ triumph in 1964. In the Cotton Bowl, the Fighting Irish beat an undefeated Texas team that handed the Hogs their only loss of the year.
All that head coach Dan Devine had to do was seal the deal when the blue-chip recruit came into his office, but the College Football Hall of Famer fumbled the ball at the 1-yard line with one snide comment: “With your transcript, you should be thinking of a better school than Arkansas.”
Big mistake.
“I doubt he’d done his homework,” the Fayetteville native told Orville Henry of the Arkansas Gazette in 1982. “My mother and father went to the University of Arkansas. He said the wrong thing.”
They were not just any old grads either. His father, Billy Ray Smith Sr., was also a Natural State native, hailing from the small town of Augusta. The elder Smith was an All-Southwest Conference standout for the Hogs in the 1950s and went on to play 13 years in the NFL, winning a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Colts along the way.
He taught his son the art of pass rushing when he was a boy, setting up dining room chairs as blockers and showing him how to read offensive linemen. Both Smiths were named to Arkansas’ All-Century Team in 1994.
“It was a real toss-up between us and Texas,” former assistant coach Jesse Branch said of the younger Smith’s recruitment. “Then his dad told him he could either drive a new car to Fayetteville or walk to Texas.”
That was that. From then on, Billy Ray Jr. was a Razorback — born and bred, through and through. Smith’s two-time consensus All-American nods give him an undisputed spot on the Mount Rushmore of legendary Arkansas defenders. Bruce James, an All-American Arkansas edge rusher in his own right, put him right up there with Phillips.
“Loyd Phillips was obviously the standard in regards to the fact that he won the Outland Trophy,” James told Best of Arkansas Sports, “but both of them had all the attributes that you were looking for in a defensive football player. They certainly had the mentality, the want-to. They could think on the run.”
“You can’t coach a lot of things that Billy Ray did,” he added. “You just sort of have it like that. They both had consistency in every game they played. They didn’t have bad games.”
All-American interior lineman Dan Hampton, who was named SWC Defensive Player of the Year the season before Smith’s arrival, also merits a place on Razorback Rushmore — especially after he went on to earn five All-Pro nods and a spot on the NFL All-Decade Team in the 1980s. Hampton, fourth overall in 1979, is the only Razorback defender to ever be drafted higher than Smith.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Atwater feels like a natural inclusion, but while he was a three-time All-SWC selection, he never garnered All-American honors at Arkansas. For that reason, Ken Hamlin — a two-time First Team All-SEC selection and 2002 First Team All-American, College Football News reported — may be the best pick to represent the secondary.
Linebacker Ronnie Caveness, a two-time All-American who anchored the Arkansas defense during the 1964 national title season, warrants an honorable mention, as does Drew Sanders. While he only played one season at Arkansas after transferring in from Alabama, he is the only Razorback defender in the last 23 years to earn First Team All-American honors.
Billy Ray Smith — both father and son — sit high up in the pantheon of Hog Heaven.
This is an excerpt of an article that first ran at bestofarkansassports.com.
Feature image: Billy Ray Smith Jr. (Photo provided by Arkansas Athletics)
