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by Tom Murphy
FAYETTEVILLE — A streak of 28 years of having at least one player taken in the NFL Draft is on the line for the University of Arkansas this weekend in Detroit.
The Razorbacks have had 80 players drafted in the past 28 years, at least one every season since 1995, including third-round picks Drew Sanders and Ricky Stromberg last year.
Whether Arkansas will continue the streak and who might be the first Razorback chosen will be determined in the next three days.
This NFL Draft, on the 10th anniversary of moving the event out of New York and turning it into a road show, will feature 257 draft picks at Hart Plaza on the banks of the Detroit River. The first round will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. Central, followed by rounds 2 and 3 on Friday starting at 6 p.m., and rounds 4-7 on Saturday starting at 11 a.m.
An interesting collection of would-be pros is on tap for the Razorbacks with ostensibly no offensive skill players in that mix.
Various draft projections have different Razorbacks — interior offensive lineman Beaux Limmer, cornerback Dwight McGlothern and placekicker Cam Little — in line to be the first Arkansas player taken to continue the streak.
Pro Football Focus has Limmer projected to go with pick No. 102 in the fourth round to the Seattle Seahawks and McGlothern with pick No. 138 in the fifth round to the New York Jets.
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler projected Limmer to go in the fifth round with pick No. 160 to the Buffalo Bills. He also projected McGlothern and Little to be seventh-round selections, to the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars, respectively.
The highest-rated Razorback per All Access Football is McGlothern at No. 193, while defensive end Trajan Jeffcoat is No. 215 and Limmer checks in just behind him at No. 219.
The Razorbacks sent five players to the NFL Scouting Combine, with offensive lineman Brady Latham joining Jeffcoat, Limmer, Little and McGlothern.
Limmer, who put up an eye-opening 39 reps on the 250-pound bench press at the combine, is ranked as the No. 15 available player at the center and guard spots by Athlon Sports. The 6-5, 307-pounder from Tyler, Texas, had the most reps on the bench press at this year’s combine and the most by a Razorback since the late Mitch Petrus had 45 in 2010.
Limmer switched from right guard to center last season at Coach Sam Pittman’s suggestion and the move is likely to pay off.
“Yeah, I think it helped me out a lot.” Limmer said at the UA’s Pro Day. “That was a recurring thing that kept coming up at the Senior Bowl and the combine is being able to show I could play center and having that versatility helped me out. I was thankful I was able to do that.”
Jeffcoat, a transfer from Missouri who was selected as a team captain at Arkansas, said he’d lost about 10 pounds to get down to 270 for his workouts for NFL scouts.
“It’s definitely hard work, losing some weight, getting slimmer, getting leaner,” Jeffcoat said on Pro Day. “Focus on mental things. Staying in the playbook so that I can recite them to scouts. … Everything is pretty good: Family, grinding, showing love to Fayetteville and the Razorbacks.”
Little might be the best kicker available in the draft, but the early-entry junior is facing a spotty history of NFL teams choosing to pick kickers rather than sign them as free agents.
On the plus side, three kickers were chosen last year — Jake Moody in the third round by San Francisco, Chad Ryland in the fourth by New England and Anders Carlson in the sixth by Green Bay — tying the highest number taken since four in 2012. But there have been shutout years for kickers, as in 2010 and 2015.
Little said on the Hogs’ Pro Day it was important to him to be drafted.
“I definitely think I have the potential to be a draft pick,” Little said. “You’ve seen probably the past two or three years there’s usually one kicker, two kickers.
“Last year was a little of a different story being three kickers getting drafted. But I do feel like being a draft pick is a special thing as a specialist. The elite guys get drafted.”
Little is the Arkansas record holder in all-time field goal accuracy (82.8%). He made a career-long 56-yard field goal last fall at Ole Miss, and he made all 129 of his collegiate extra-point attempts.
Little said his long-distance consistency in 2023 led him to think declaring after his junior year was the right play.
“In fall camp I was attempting field goals from 58, 61, 56 and I was just banging them through,” Little said. “That’s what it takes to make it in the NFL. I mean you take a guy like Evan McPherson, for example, he ended up leaving early as well and he’s attempting 57-, 58-yarders in the first quarter.
“So it’s like in order to be at that level for most teams you’ve got to be able to make those deep attempts. So I feel like I showed success during the season with that and I felt like I was ready mentally to go chase my dream in the NFL.”
Little is attempting to become the fifth Arkansas kicker drafted, following Bill McClard (1972), Steve Little (the 15th overall pick in 1978), Kendall Trainor (1989) and Zach Hocker (2014).
NFL.com’s Chad Reuters is high on Little, projecting him as the first kicker chosen with pick No. 108 in the fourth round to the Minnesota Vikings.
Little is part of outstanding class of SEC kickers available. He joins Alabama’s Will Reichard, college football’s all-time leading scorer with 547 points over five seasons, and Missouri’s Harrison Mevis. Nicknamed the “Thicker Kicker” for his 5-11, 243-pound build, Mevis has made 86 of 103 (83.5%) field-goal attempts and a school-record 12 from 50-plus yards, including a game-winning 61-yarder, the longest in SEC history, as time expired to beat Kansas State 30-27 last year.
In rankings by Athlon Sports, Limmer is the No. 15 guard/center available, Jeffcoat is the No. 27 edge rusher and McGlothern the No. 30 cornerback.
NFL.com’s Reuter projected Jeffcoat with pick No. 216 to the Dallas Cowboys and Limmer with pick No. 221 to the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Razorbacks who competed at Pro Day in addition to Jeffcoat, Latham, Limmer, Little and McGlothern were tight end Nathan Bax, quarterback Cade Fortin, linebacker Antonio Grier, defensive end John Morgan, defensive back Alfahiym Walcott and track and field standout Roje Stona.
The NFL Draft shrank to eight rounds in 1993 and it dropped to seven rounds the following season and has stayed at that number since.
The Razorbacks have managed to have at least one player taken in every year since then with the exception of 1995, although there have been several near misses.
In 1998, defensive end David Sanders was the lone Arkansas pick at No. 235 in the seventh round. Defensive end Carlos Hall was chosen with pick No. 240 of the seventh round in 2002, and defensive back Vickiel Vaughn was the only Razorback taken in 2006 at pick No. 254.
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