FAYETTEVILLE — Bobby Petrino can’t wait to unleash all 6-6 of Taylen Green in 11 days against Arkansas-Pine Bluff in Little Rock.
That’s from his cleats to the peak of his throwing motion, because with Green it’s the wheels and the wingspan that could set him apart.
Since Green could not be tackled during spring drills and in preseason training camp, University of Arkansas fans have not really seen him let loose with a stride and the complimentary speed that might remind some of Razorback great Matt Jones. You’d have to go back to his highlight clips from three seasons at Boise State, where Green rushed for 1,024 yards and 19 touchdowns over the past two seasons, to appreciate his ground game.
Petrino, back at Arkansas in his first year as offensive coordinator, said he thinks Green is a passing quarterback who provides a big bonus with his running ability, and he has a built-in advantage with his height.
“He did a really nice job in the summer on working on his technique, on his drops, his sets, keeping his front shoulder where it needs to be, and we’ve worked really hard on getting him to have more of an over-the-top release,” Petrino said last week. “He’s 6-foot-6, he’s an outlier, so his advantage is to be a 6-foot-6. When he first got here, he was dropping down (his release angle) and sometimes making him 6-foot.
“So I think that’s been a tremendous improvement. Just his technique and his release and his accuracy has went way up.”
Green said he has absorbed Petrino’s preaching.
“He does a great job in indy (individual drills) of concentrating on the fundamentals,” Green said. “He always tells us that it starts with the footwork and saying, ‘Don’t throw at 6-3, be 6-6. Use all my frame to throw.’
“Since just the warmups, he tells me every single time when I don’t do it and he’s just making it a habit. I’m strict on myself on the fundamentals.”
Green is leading redshirt freshman Malachi Singleton, true freshman lefty KJ Jackson, and another pair of redshirt freshmen in Austin Ledbetter and transfer Blake Boda at the quarterback spot for the Razorbacks.
Green started working with the top unit to begin spring drills, when Morrilton High School product Jacolby Criswell was still on the roster, and has remained there. Coach Sam Pittman said Green’s leadership skills have been on display from the outset, to the point the redshirt junior accompanied Pittman and seniors Andrew Armstrong and Landon Jackson to SEC media days in July.
“Taylen Green came in and took the team,” Pittman said at his pre-camp news conference. “Once he earned the starting spot, he took the team. It wasn’t anything about me, me, me. It was about us.”
Singleton said having Green around to learn the Petrino offense together has been helpful.
“It’s been huge,” Singleton said. “Having to learn a new offense is always hard at first, and you just want to ask as many questions to get as much information as you can so you can be on point when you get out on the field.
“Personally, Taylen has done a great job. I ask all the time, just on the field talking ball, ‘What did you do on this? What did you do on that?’ He’s been really helping me on that. In the meeting room, I always ask questions.”
Petrino said Green has gone big in developing a rapport with a veteran receiving corps, the better to spark an on-field chemistry that is essential to winning football.
“They worked hard on that this summer,” Petrino said. “Even in the spring, I almost had to tell them to not go out on the weekends and throw. We’re doing so much during the week that you want to stay healthy, you don’t want to overtrain.
“They were wanting to go out on Saturdays and Sundays and we cut it back to just Sunday. But they’ve worked hard together on the ability to be on the same page. We do some reads by our receivers, give them options to break in and out or take it over the top. We are continually improving on that. We’re not where we need to be yet by any means, but we’re getting better at it.”
The Razorbacks are having to replace three-year starter KJ Jefferson, who left school with nearly every UA passing record. However, after two big years in the lead role with offensive coordinator Kendal Briles in which the Hogs went 16-10 and pulled off some huge wins, Jefferson fell back statistically last season under coordinator Dan Enos, who was fired after eight games. And it appeared his leadership ability came under scrutiny late in the season after the Razorbacks lost a series of tight road games to LSU, Alabama and Ole Miss and then suffered some unsightly home blowouts.
Pittman hasn’t taken any direct shots at Jefferson, who transferred to Central Florida, but he has made it a point to hype Green’s connection to the team and his leadership ability.
Green’s status as elder statesman in the quarterback room is a source of fun.
“They remind me all the time that I’m the old head,” said Green, who turns 22 in October. “I don’t think about it like that. But they always remind me and make a little bit of jokes, but it’s all good.”
Green said he likes the way Singleton, who did not take a game rep while redshirting last year, has been a willing understudy.
“He’s done a great job just being a sponge, asking questions,” Green said.”Just asking questions to me or asking Coach Petrino and stuff like that. I tell him all the time that anything that I do, good or bad, just learn from it, because I was in that role, too.”
Petrino asserted he was comfortable having Singleton in the backup role.
“Malachi is doing a great job,” he said. “He’s got really, really good knowledge. He delivers the ball on time, and he’s accurate with it. I don’t think we’ll ever know how good Malachi is until they have to tackle him.”
Green completed 59.4% of his passes at Boise State — 57.1% last season — and had a 25-to-15 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Arkansas quarterbacks Feleipe Franks and Jefferson produced the top three completion percentage seasons in school history in a row, with Franks (.685) in 2020, Jefferson in 2022 (.680) and 2021 (.673), before Jefferson fell slightly to .642 last season.
Petrino said completion percentage is not a statistic that moves him.
“There’s so many things that go into completion percentage,” he said. “You can’t just judge a quarterback on that because it starts with all 11 guys being on the same page between your pass protection … and then the precision of your wide receivers with routes.
“Anytime I recruit somebody, I really don’t look at the completion percentage. I’m looking at how they throw the ball, how they compete, what their decision making is as opposed to staying away from percentages.”