In the midst of all the Arkansas players entering the transfer portal or moving on from their Razorback career, quarterback KJ Jefferson still has unfinished business in Fayetteville.
Jefferson announced on Dec. 3 that he will return for his redshirt senior season with the Razorbacks.
"That was a huge announcement for us," linebacker Chris "Pooh" Paul said Saturday. "KJ does have a big role in the Arkansas football team and in the community, so I think that was huge."
After being the team's starting signal-caller for the second straight year, Jefferson said he feels like he still has something to prove.
"I mean, I ain’t have a healthy season like I wanted to," Jefferson said. "I ain’t have the season that I wanted, so I always knew I wanted to come back, and I just want to finish in an Arkansas uniform."
Jefferson completed 68.3% of his passes for 2,361 yards, 22 touchdowns and four interceptions in 10 games this season. He also carried the ball 144 times for 510 rushing yards and seven scores on the ground.
No player was more valuable to the Hogs this year than Jefferson, and that showed in the two games he missed — losses to LSU and Mississippi State — and in the Liberty game, when he was playing less than 100%.
Having another year to build up draft stock and pad the stats will certainly benefit Jefferson, but he said he also didn't want to give up the bond he's built with his team just yet.
"I knew I always could play here, and I just felt like this was home for me and I didn’t want to leave," Jefferson said. "I just felt like I had built a bond with each and everybody in the locker room — coaches, the whole staff — so I didn’t want to just give that up. So I just wanted to come back and finish out the right way and just go out there with a bang."
Finishing the right way will begin with the Dec. 28 Liberty Bowl matchup with Kansas. Though the Hogs will be down a significant amount of players, Jefferson will still be there to lead the team.
"KJ's the leader of our program, and he also happens to play quarterback," head coach Sam Pittman said on Dec. 4. "He's a great person, works his tail off. He's excited to participate in the Liberty Bowl, we're excited to have him back. But it's a huge deal for the university, and it just shows the culture of our football team that he would elect to come back and be a part of it. As he said in (something), we've got some unfinished business, and I believe that starts with this bowl game."
The Liberty Bowl will kickoff at 4:30 p.m. CT at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis. The matchup between the Hogs and Jayhawks will be broadcast on ESPN.
