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LITTLE ROCK — Playing just an hour and a half up the road from his hometown, Treylon Burks put on a show at War Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
Despite standing on the sideline for the entire second half, Arkansas’ star wide receiver scored three touchdowns - two through the air and one on the ground - and accounted for 142 total yards of offense in the Razorbacks’ 45-3 win over UAPB.
“Did you watch it? He was the best guy out there,” head coach Sam Pittman said. “Burks, it's hard to cover him one-on-one and keep him from catching the football. He certainly did.”
Both of Burks’ touchdown catches came in the second quarter, when Arkansas asserted its dominance by scoring 28 points and jumping out to a 45-0 lead.
The first of his scores was an 18-yard strike on a third-down slant, which Pittman said the Razorbacks planned all week to use to beat UAPB’s all-out blitz. He caught KJ Jefferson’s pass and managed to keep his knee up just long enough to lunch into the end zone.
Burks’ second score was actually the final points of the game for Arkansas. He got behind the defense on fourth-and-4 and the result was a 39-yard touchdown.
"I knew he was going to run by the guy,” Jefferson said. “He was playing hard inside. I knew to just put the ball up and let him go make a play."
Not only did that put the Razorbacks up by 45, but it also pushed Burks over 2,000 career receiving yards. He is just the ninth player in UA history to reach that milestone - not that it matters much to him.
“I really don’t even look at stuff like that,” Burks said. “I just go play for the team.”
However, one aspect of hitting that mark did bring a smile to Burks’ face. When informed that he was the third player out of Warren High - a Class 4A school in the 66th-largest city in Arkansas - to reach 2,000 career yards, he lit up.
“It means a lot just to be a part of that,” Burks said. “We had a lot of talent come out of Warren with Jarius Wright, Greg Childs and Chris Gragg. To be a part of that means a lot.”
Before he ever caught a pass Saturday, though, Burks found his way into the end zone on the ground. He took a handoff from Jefferson on a jet sweep and raced 49 yards down the sideline.
Although he had 125 career rushing yards entering the game, it was his first rushing touchdown with the Razorbacks. The play - which Jefferson said they worked on a lot in practice - was made possible by solid blocks on the outside from Warren Thompson and Hudson Henry.
“When Coach (Kendal) Briles called it, he just told me to just read it and if I liked it outside, liked (the) space, just try to get Treylon in space,” Jefferson said. “He’s a freakish player in space, so…when we snapped the ball, I gave it to him, turned around and looked and saw him hit the lane and it was over from there.”
Not playing in the second half likely prevented Burks from notching his third straight 100-yard game, but he is still on track for a historic season.
With four regular-season games remaining, he has 42 receptions for 717 yards and seven touchdowns. He’d need to average just 70.8 yards to become the fourth 1,000-yard receiver in school history before a potential bowl game.
“He's a great player and he's not done yet,” Pittman said. “He's still got the rest of this year and, the bottom line is, we'll look at where the NFL tells us that he's going to be drafted. Then…I’ll sit down with him and his family and we'll all figure it out. But he still has at least 4-5, hopefully 5 games left for us before that decision ever has to be made.”
If he chooses to return for his senior season, Burks would have an excellent shot at breaking Wright’s school record of 2,934 career receiving yards, but that’d require turning down what appears to be a first-round slot in next spring’s NFL Draft.
Whether or not he declares early and begins his professional career in 2022 or comes back to school, Burks is solely focused on this year’s team.
“Really, I want to play for Arkansas, and that’s who I’m playing for right now,” Burks said. “The NFL will come later and I’ll worry about that when that time comes.”
