Arkansas lands graduate transfer kicker from Duke

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It appears the Razorbacks have found Connor Limpert’s successor.

Former Duke kicker AJ Reed announced Thursday night via Twitter that he was transferring to Arkansas. He will be immediately eligible for his final collegiate season as a graduate transfer.

The Prattville, Ala., native will be tasked with replacing the most accurate kicker in school history, as Limpert made 78.8 percent of his career field goals to break Zach Hocker’s mark of 77.2 percent.

Reed is coming off a fantastic redshirt junior season for the Blue Devils in which he made 15 of 18 field goals and was perfect on 34 extra-point attempts.

That capped what was one of the more incredible turnarounds in college football last season. A highly touted prospect coming out of high school, Reed had a disastrous freshman season in 2016. He made just 3 of 10 field goals and even missed a PAT, leading to Duke using several other kickers the following two seasons.

After battling a hamstring injury in 2017, Reed regained the kickoff duties midway through the 2018 season and averaged 59.4 yards with five touchbacks on 34 kickoffs.

That paved the way for him to win the starting job this season. He made 83.3 percent of his field goals, including kicks from 49, 50 and 51 yards, and all three of his misses were from at least 40 yards. Reed also notched 15 touchbacks and averaged 55.8 yards on 57 kickoffs.

According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Reed is set to graduate in May with a political science major and economics minor. As of November, he had a 3.75 GPA.

Bringing in a transfer kicker is not particularly surprising for the Razorbacks.

They added UTSA transfer Jared Sackett - a two-time Lou Groza Award semifinalist - before last season and he figured to replace Limpert after sitting out the 2019 season because of NCAA transfer rules.

However, following the coaching change, Sackett entered the transfer portal again and landed at South Florida, where he reunited with former Arkansas quality control coach Daniel Da Prato.

Matthew Phillips, who is also a punter, backed up Limpert last season and is still on the roster, plus the Razorbacks added two preferred walk-ons in Rhett Thurman and Vito Calvaruso.

Less than seven hours before Reed’s announcement, special teams coordinator Scott Fountain told HawgBeat that, even though it had already brought in two high school kids, Arkansas was still actively looking to add more kickers.

“We’re going to possibly look in the grad transfer area, if there’s a need there,” Fountain said. “If there is, we’ll go in that direction. If not, I’ve always liked to have three kickers, three punters, three long snappers in the program - not that many scholarships, but try to put a scholarship on a kicker, punter or long snapper and then find really good walk-ons to play those roles.”

It is unclear if Reed will be a scholarship player or walk-on. If he goes on scholarship, he would take one of the two remaining scholarships for Arkansas’ 2020 class - which currently features 19 high school signees, one junior college transfer and three graduate transfers.

The Razorbacks are also still targeting Clemson defensive tackle Xavier Kelly as a graduate transfer and have three-star running back Ebony Jackson - who did not sign Wednesday - committed, both of whom would take up a scholarship.

For HawgBeat’s projected scholarship distribution for next season as it currently stands, click here.