12/12/2018 football Edit

JUCO OT Chibueze Nwanna Commits to Arkansas Over Maryland

Nikki Chavanelle • HawgBeat

Managing Editor

In the span of 24 hours the Razorbacks have won two major battles that'll greatly impact the team's performance in 2019. Lackawanna C.C. offensive tackle Chibueze Nwanna announced his commitment to Arkansas on Wednesday afternoon, just a day after another JUCO offensive lineman did the same, Iowa Central's Myron Cunningham.

Both linemen could step in at tackle positions and the Razorbacks will have good depth with Noah Gatlin and Dalton Wagner with them. With five 2019 signees Arkansas will be at 14 offensive line scholarships and could have a 15th should Warren High School 3-star Marcus Miller move from defensive tackle to the offensive line.

Nwanna chose Arkansas over Maryland, his home-state school, after taking his official visit in Fayetteville this past weekend.

"The people were nice," Chibueze said after the visit. "I feel like family here."

The lineman has two years to play two seasons on the Hill, and he plans to come in and be an immediate help to the offensive line that gave up 32 sacks in 2018. He'll be graduating this month and joining the team in January.

"I decided to come here because of the people and environment," Nwanna said. "The fans really love the Razorbacks. I feel I could come in and make an improvement and get better."

Nwanna is ranked 36th in the nation out of all JUCO prospects and GridIronRR has him at 13th best offensive tackle. He wasn't highly recruited out of high school because of his SAT scores and he redshirted his first year at Lackawanna. He began playing offensive tackle a year ago and that's when he started picking up offers. The Razorbacks offered him in July and he now holds nine Division-I offers, Arkansas being the only SEC offer.

Nwanna is commit number 25 for the 2019 class and joins Cunningham, Brady Latham out of Jenks, Oklahoma, Beaux Limmer out of Tyler, Texas and Dylan Rathcke out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Chad Morris has said he'd like to carry 15 scholarship offensive linemen but with just four spots left in the 2019 class, they'll have to save them for a couple secondary additions, a linebacker and a quarterback.