Pittman Trying to Get Recruits to Campus for Saturday

After month of 11 a.m. starts, Arkansas finally has a game at home late enough to get recruits on campus

In October only one SEC team failed to have one official football visit the entire month.

Arkansas can thank the league office for that.

The Auburn game on Sept. 16 was the first game in Razorback Stadium since Georgia Southern on September 18. It was one of four straight games scheduled for 11 a.m.

It's not an ideal situation for recruiting.

Now they play Mississippi State on Saturday at 3 p.m. and the Razorbacks' staff has been working through the bye week to get recruits on campus.

"We been trying to get as many recruits as we can for Mississippi State because of that," Sam Pittman said Monday. "We would anyway. We've got a pretty fine list working to get the recruits here at 3 p.m.

"Ideally if you wanted to recruit it would be a night game."

The Hogs won't have one of those at home the rest of this season. Missouri will come to town for a 1:30 p.m. game the day after Thanksgiving.

"Unless a guy is just adamant he wants to see a game or if he says he's so far away and he says, 'hey, I want to see the atmosphere,'" Pittman said. "We would rather bring 'em in in December if we could simply because you get 48 hours with the parents, with the young man.

"Parents earn that right to be on a wine-and-dine education-type visit. You really can't do it the right way because of the game, the prep for the next week."

Coaches obviously want the players as close to the Dec. 15 early signing date, which has quickly become the new target ... for everybody.

"You do it the best you can but they get a lot better experience if they wait until December. Kids aren't doing that right now."

The early signing date has changed what was the norm for coaches when everybody signed in February.

Not anymore.

"Most of our official visits are over," Pittman said.

In the most recent SI All-American recruiting rankings, Arkansas was up to No. 20 in the nation. Penn State is at the top, but there are four SEC teams in the Top 10, Three others are in the Top 20.

Which puts the Hogs squarely in the middle of the pack in the November rankings.

That will probably change, though.

Which way is the question.