Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

In the not-too-distant past, when the best high school football player in Arkansas chose to leave the state, much hand-wringing ensued among Razorback fans. Now, barely anyone notices.

It was hardly a blip earlier this week when Jonesboro senior running back Zac Brooks revealed his intention to attend Clemson next year. Brooks reportedly had narrowed his choices to Auburn, Clemson, Notre Dame and Arkansas but had dozens of other big-time suitors.

The attention toward Brooks had led out-of-state recruiting writers and recruiting websites to consider him Arkansas' best prospect in the 2012 class.

As is often pointed out when these commitments happen a half-year ahead of the national signing date for high school seniors, an oral commitment is non-binding. High school kids can change their mind about a lunch destination in the 5 minutes it takes to reach their cars in the school parking lot, and they will change their choice of college destination just as easily.

Take Arkansas senior Joe Adams, for example. Then a senior wide receiver/running back for Central Arkansas Christian Academy in 2007, Adams had a televised commitment to Southern Cal early that season via KLRT-TV, Fox 16. We wondered why the Fox affiliate would even bother to make such a big deal about a player choosing a school that early, much less one planning to play at USC. Adams, while highly regarded, probably wasn't as well-known around the state as the last player to have a statewide commitment announcement (that was Mitch Mustain, broadcast to all points by KATV, Channel 7 in 2005, when he chose Arkansas, before decommitting, then recommitting again).

Those two examples alone ought to be enough to convince the local TV powers that be that broadcasting commitment announcements should be avoided at all cost. Adams, it turned out, changed his destination to Arkansas almost as soon as he met new coach Bobby Petrino, who was bringing a wide-open offense to Fayetteville in taking over for the run-loving Houston Nutt. (And Mustain, as we all know now, ended up leaving Arkansas after one tumultuous year with Nutt and languishing on the bench at Southern Cal as a transfer).

Since Petrino has coached his first season in Fayetteville, the supposed "best" player in Arkansas the past three years has headed elsewhere: Michael Dyer, the Parade All-American and "5-star" running back from Little Rock Christian Academy chose Auburn and signed with the Tigers in 2009, breaking Bo Jackson's freshman rushing record last fall; Shiloh Christian quarterback Kiehl Frazier, also rated a "5-star" and a Parade All-American as well as the Gatorade Player of the Year, signed with Auburn last February; and now Jonesboro's Brooks is planning to go elsewhere.

In each case, nobody has looked at those players and felt that they were a make-or-break signee for Arkansas. We're not talking about Keith Jackson Sr. choosing Oklahoma or Brinkley's Jerry Eckwood in the 1970s turning down Southern Cal and the rest of the national Top 25 to be a Hog.

In Dyer's case, Arkansas already had a stocked backfield. Frazier seems more of a Gus Malzahn-type spread quarterback than a Bobby Petrino-style drop-back passer. Brooks wants to be a running back in college but at 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds may be more suited to be a Joe Adams-style receiver, but it's not like Arkansas is lacking (or ever will) at wide receiver under Petrino.

When the state has produced great defensive or offensive linemen, such as in the case of Junction City's Byran Jones in 2009 (Dyer's class) and Springdale Har-Ber's Brey Cook (Frazier's class), Petrino and his staff have landed them.

And maybe it's coincidence, but it also seems like anytime Auburn is the front-runner for an Arkansas prep prospect, that player suddenly is a "5-star" talent on the national recruiting websites and is rated "best" in the state: Dyer, Frazier and Brooks all were sought by the Tigers, though Brooks to this point ended up picking a different bunch of Tigers (there's a certain symmetry between Auburn and Clemson anyway).

Ask the people in Arkansas who watch these players week in and week out and you'd probably get a different opinion of the past two years and just who was the best. Byran Jones was as important to Petrino's 2010 signing class, just as Cook in this year's class, as anybody the Razorbacks recruited.