Taylen Green has stepped into the quarterback job at Arkansas and is seemingly doing so with an amazing comfort level for someone who arrived in January.
Green, 6-6, 221, is a redshirt junior who transferred in from Boise State in January. At Boise State last season, Green completed 121 of 212 passes for 1,752 yards, 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also rushed 78 times for 436 yards and nine touchdowns. He saved his best for the last game he played there. In the Mountain West Conference Championship Game, Green completed 12 of 15 passes for 226 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed eight times for 90 yards and two more touchdowns. Sam Pittman likes what he has seen from his new quarterback.
“Well, his main strength is that he can lead a football team,” Pittman said. “That’s his best quality that he has. He’s obviously extremely fast. He throws a ball well. His accuracy is going to continue to improve. But he can really run and he’s got great leadership. He can throw the football too.
“Accuracy, obviously every time we throw it, myself Bobby (Petrino), him, we want to throw it right where we want to throw it every single time. But I’ll tell you this, 5 (Tyrone Broden), 2 (Andrew Armstrong), 88 (Davion Dozier) today and I mean there’s some guys making some really good catches as well. But great leadership. You can see how the players look at him on both sides of the ball. That’s his biggest quality. He’s doing well.
Green is competing with Malachi Singleton, Jacolby Criswell and KJ Jackson for the job. Green has taken the majority of the first-team snaps. Petrino, the former head coach at Arkansas, is coaching the quarterbacks and coordinating the offense. Some felt he was more intense on Thursday, Arkansas’ last practice prior to spring break, but Pittman didn’t seem to agree.
“No, I didn’t really notice it,” Pittman said. “A lot of times in games and more scrimmage formats, you’re going to be a little bit more excited. You’re going to be more encouragement instead of teach mode, because let’s face the facts, every play we called today offensively and defensively, we’ve repped a whole bunch. So we’re expecting both sides to perform at a high level.
