How Justin Stepp became the lone survivor from Chad Morris's staff
There aren't many things Arkansas fans wanted to hold on to from the Chad Morris era that saw the program drop to a new, unfathomable low, but wide receivers coach Justin Stepp was one of them.
After all, Stepp recruited all three of the Razorbacks' current starters at the position and signed a 2019 class with four 4-star wideouts that rivaled any group in the nation. Two of those 4-stars, Treylon Burks and Trey Knox, ranked second and third in the SEC amongst true freshman wide receivers despite a passing offense ranked 11th in the conference.
Stepp followed Morris from Clemson to SMU and from SMU to Arkansas so when the head man was fired, the situation looked bleak for his future in Fayetteville.
More important to Stepp than working with Morris (or job security) was doing everything possible to stay with his players on the Hill. Anybody who knows the South Carolina native knows that the players come first.
So Stepp stuck around, just in case. Passing up opportunities elsewhere, including a comfortable position at UTSA with his former staff mates, Stepp decided to stay in Fayetteville and help Sam Pittman begin to salvage what they could out of a decimated 2020 recruiting class.
As it turns out, a few days on the road with the Head Hog was all Stepp needed to win him over:
“He went out on the road with me for two or three days. We’d go into high schools, I saw how the players we were recruiting looked at him and I saw the rapport he had with them," Pittman said. "I had at least two coaches grab me before we left and say, 'I want to talk to you.' I thought it was about the recruit, and it was about Stepp. They were passionate about what they had to say about him.
“I came home that night, I’m laying in bed and I talked to Jamie. I said, ‘I’m going to hire him tomorrow.’ She said, ‘Who?’ I said, ‘Justin Stepp.’ She of course wanted to know all about him, does he have a wife, kids, all that kind of stuff.
“We’re driving to the local airport out here and I asked him to get his wife on the phone. He said, ‘On speakerphone?’ I asked her if she liked it here and she said yeah. I asked her about what she does and she said she really loved her church, and I said, ‘That’s awesome because I’m going to ask Justin to be my wide receivers coach.’ You’ll have to ask him how he reacted, but it was great.”
When approaching hires Pittman said there were three key factors, "I wanted a good person, someone who knew what they were doing and could communicate that, and I wanted a good recruiter." That's how Stepp became the lone survivor from Morris's coaching staff.
Coming off of two 2-10 seasons, hopes will be high for a rapid turnaround back to relevance. Stepp's group of wide receivers and the 2020 recruits he signs will be a huge part of that.
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