Arkansas Has Two Staff Departures Over Weekend

Over the course of the offseason, turnover among the coaching staff is just about impossible to avoid. Coaches are always shuffling around and this weekend the Hogs have a couple new open positions. Defensive Line coach John Scott Jr. and Director of Recruiting Taylor Edwards will be taking other jobs.

Edwards announced on twitter his decision to move to a similar position with Maryland. He previously worked with their new head coach Mike Locksley at his previous stop at Alabama. Edwards played an important role in Arkansas’ excellent 2019 recruiting class and will be pretty big shoes to fill.

One of the two holdovers from Bret Bielema’s staff, Scott Jr. just finished his second year with the Hogs. He’s reportedly taking a similar position at South Carolina. It’s a bit of a homecoming for him, as he’s from Greer, S.C. and played his college football at Western Carolina. Scott had focused on the defensive tackles in 2018 and shared the position group with Scott Caldwell.

Chad Morris can opt to keep the structure the same and find a replacement for the defensive tackles, or he can restructure things to allow Caldwell to coach the entire defensive line. That would free up a spot to bring in a dedicated special teams coordinator. After last seasons results on special teams, the latter would seem to be what would bring the most benefit to the team.