Florida running back Alex Collins announced Monday night that he will be playing football next year at the University of Arkansas. Collins is a top 150 player in the 2013 football class no matter what recruiting site you look at. Collins brings great speed and size to an Arkansas offense that needed depth at the RB position. However, the interesting thing about Collin’s commitment is that Collins may not be the biggest story here.
Arkansas currently has only one player on their roster from the state of Florida. Who is that player you ask? Javontee Herndon, who has shown some signs of talent, but Herndon fell into Arkansas lap after nobody in Florida recruited him. Collins is a big time recruit that received legitimate interest from Florida, Florida State and Miami. To take a great talent out of Florida is such a big deal in recruiting. There are a lot of young kids from Florida that will now look at Arkansas as a legitimate school to attend. Take Louisville for example, Charlie Strong was able to bring in highly talented Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater from Florida to Louisville. Since getting Bridgewater, Louisville has built a strong hold in the state of Florida. Look at Louisville’s current class, they have seven, yes, seven Florida kids currently committed to play for them next year. All you need sometimes is one big name from a state to open the door for a school to come in and take recruits. Alex Collins might have just opened the door wide open for Bret Bielema.
With the signing of Collins, Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema has already defeated former coach Bobby Petrino in recruiting the state of Florida. One of the first recruiting territories Petrino promised to recruit was the athletes in Florida. Petrino’s staff spent a lot of time in Florida early trying to pick up recruits from the area, but he never found any success. The only recruits of notice Petrino got was talented, but very troubled wide-receiver Marquel Wade and the aforementioned Javontee Herndon. Meanwhile, Bret Bielema currently has 3 Florida kids committed to Arkansas. It is amazing to see what Bret Bielema has done in only one month of work at Arkansas. Bielema hired both Charilie Partridge and Randy Shannon to his staff, both have extremely strong ties to Florida. For this staff to win over Alex Collins in a month to me is amazing. Imagine what Bielema could do in one entire year of recruiting. There is some sort of confidence and charm that Bielema brings to the table it seems like. Bielema has shown to be fearless in recruiting. He brought kids from warm weather Florida to always cold Wisconsin. Unlike at Wisconsin though, Bielema has the facilities and money to compete in Florida, so this could just be the beginning of Arkansas picking up a big recruit from the always football talent heavy state of Florida.
Now onto a little bit about Alex Collins. All Arkansas fans need to know about him is that Darren McFadden tweeted at this young man saying that Collins would look good in Razorback Red. Are you kidding? I’m sold, that’s literally all I need to hear. However if you aren’t sold, Collins is a 5’11 207 pound running back that brings excellent speed and power in the backfield. He will be a great option with Jonathan Williams next year for the Hogs. Did I mention Darren McFadden said he would look good in Razorback red?!? It’s going to be fun to see how the state of Florida now looks at Arkansas becuase they have taken a big name from the state. Maybe this is just a one time thing for Arkansas, but looking at Bielema’s past, I would have to say no.
Here is a link to Collin’s highlight video…Pretty Impressive.