HawgBeat Camp Notebook: Toll back to TE, LB depth, feeding Burks, more

FAYETTEVILLE — In just eight months with the Razorbacks, Blayne Toll has switched positions three times without playing in a single game.

The three-star athlete from Hazen signed with Arkansas as a defensive end, but was quickly moved to tight end to help with depth at the position.

After spending all summer going through virtual meetings with the tight ends, Toll flipped back to the other side of the ball for the start of walk-throughs. Now seven practices into camp, he’s back on offense.

“To be honest with you, we’re trying to find two really good tight ends and if we can get three and four, that’d be great,” Pittman said. “But right now, that one right there, I can tell you I don’t have a clue who the starting tight end is yet.”

Redshirt freshman Hudson Henry has been the presumed starter, but it sounds like he hasn’t separated himself from a group that includes former walk-on Blake Kern and walk-on transfer Nathan Bax, as well as Collin Sutherland and walk-on Jonas Higson - both of whom are true freshmen.

In addition to Toll, linebacker Eric Thomas Jr. also switched over to offense and was getting work at tight end this week.

Linebacker Depth

On the other side of the ball, linebacker is as much in the air still as tight end.

Junior Bumper Pool and fifth-year senior Grant Morgan, a former walk-on, have handled the first-team duties in most of the videos shared by the UA, with fifth-year senior Deon Edwards and redshirt sophomore Andrew Parker getting work with the second unit.

Although his opinion could change after reviewing the film from Friday’s scrimmage, Pittman said none of them had fully solidified their spot on the depth chart.

“We haven’t really had a guy going, ‘This is my job and I’m going to take it from you,’” Pittman said. “That position right there is still a wide-open position of who’s going to be our starters there.”