Maureese Wren ready to change roles with Arkansas commitment

Maureese Wren may have raised some eyebrows this week when he took an unofficial visit to Colorado just days before announcing his commitment on Wednesday night, but he didn’t leave Boulder with intentions of becoming a Buffalo.

Instead, he stuck to his guns and added his name to Arkansas’ 2018 recruiting class. Wren is the twelfth commit in the Razorbacks’ class this year and the fourth from Texas. Although he has been primarily known as a receiver at the high school level, he’ll be lining up as a linebacker in Arkansas’ new-look defense.

“It feels great,” he said. “Getting that weight off my back, not having to worry about anything anymore, and being on a team like Arkansas - they expect nothing but the best. They’re a great team and they’re very competitive, so those are the things that really stood out for me.”

Wren was in Fayetteville last month, but outside of the football-related aspects of his visit, it was the sense of community that really won him over.

“It’s just beautiful all-around out there,” he said. “And the people out there - that’s just a plus. They’re all nice and they really treated me like I was a part of their own family.”

This offseason has been an interesting one for Wren when it came to his recruitment. He was a known commodity as a strong receiver, and showed very well for himself working on offense in the Dallas event of the Rivals Three Stripe Camps presented by adidas, but saw things really pick up when teams started considering his potential as a linebacker.

Even though he missed about half of last season with an ankle injury, he’ll be looked to again this fall as West Mesquite-Horn’s top receiver on offense and featured pass-rusher on defense. Fortunately, he has the luxury of knowing that his future in college will be as a defender, and the reps that he’ll get there this season now have an added layer of significance.

“He’s an excellent pass-rusher and blitzer, but he’s not been asked to cover before this spring,” Horn football assistant Larry Wheeler said. “So he’s still a little raw in that area other than his understanding of route-running and route combinations from his experience as a wide receiver.”

Certainly Arkansas - and Wren - are aware of that much, but his physical tools and potential make him a safe bet that within the time it will take for him to get significant playing time, he should be capable of stepping in an making an impact.

“I know that they have a person at my position right now and they’re switching to more of a 3-4 defense,” he said. “They really haven’t recruited anyone from my position that knows how to cover and stuff like that since they have been running another system. They have (Randy) Ramsey who plays my position that’s going to be a senior when I get there, so we’ll just see what happens.”

As far as his recruitment is concerned going forward - and the significance of that visit out to Colorado - the door might have been left open just a crack. Wren said that there is a possibility he may want to take an official visit back out to Boulder and that Texas Tech and Washington are other potential official visit destinations as well.

“I just wanted to visit out there and see if I had any second thoughts or anything like that,” he said of Colorado. “They’re really cool people, the coaches are cool, and I know some of the players out there.”

He also knows players at Arkansas. In fact, he said that Texas products McTelvin Agim and Kofi Boateng were both important voices in his consideration of the Razorbacks.

“They were just straight-up with me,” he said. “They told me that if I come there, I need to be ready to work and if I am coming there for a starting position I just have to keep at it.”

Of course, it helped that he’s had a strong direct relationship with the man in charge of the program as well.

“I talk to Coach (Bret Bielema) the most,” he said. “Me and him have just been talking ever since they offered and we’ve just been building a closer relationship. He’s a really laid-back guy; he might have a joke here or there, but he’s just a pretty cool coach.”

If any further confirmation of Wren’s enthusiasm to get to work at Arkansas was needed following his announcement, he addressed his optimism for the direction of the program while calling his presumed future team we.

“I believe that with the young players that we got, Arkansas is on the way to doing something real special out there,” he said.