Arkansas Razorbacks News You May Have Missed

It’s been quite a week in Arkansas Razorbacks news. Here’s some of the biggest stories that you may have missed.

We do our best here at Razorbackers to keep you all updated about the happenings in and around the University of Arkansas. Sometimes, however, stories fall through the cracks for whatever reason. So here is a collection of newsworthy events that didn’t get the time dedicated to them this week that they deserved.

Arkansas Gymnastics

The Arkansas Razorbacks Gymnastics team just got their first win over Alabama in Tuscaloosa EVER. In case you didn’t know, gymnastics has become one of the most popular sports on campus across the SEC over the past few years, with schools like Arkansas and Bama drawing crowds of 3-5000 spectators.

Also, in case you haven’t seen the gymnastic teams uniforms, they have an awesome sparkly front facing Hog on the back of them. You can see the video of their match winning final vault here.

The Gymbacks have a home match against Auburn on the 29th. It will be on the SEC Network.

Ladybacks are Turning Heads

This wasn’t supposed to be the season where the Arkansas women’s basketball team started turning heads. And yet, despite a slow start, the Ladybacks have been crushing it in January. The Ladybacks have won 4 out of their 6 games so far this month, with 3 of those wins coming against ranked opponents.

While they are still below .500 on the year so far, this should make fans excited for the prospects of development going forward under Jimmy Dykes. Also, you should be excited that Dykes has signed the highest rated recruit in the history of Ladybacks basketball for next season.

The Ladybacks play again today at 3 pm on the SEC Network at Auburn, and then they will host Florida this Thursday in Bud Walton.

Segrest Staying Put

Rumors began to circulate earlier this week that Arkansas defensive line coach Rory Segrest was the front runner for the defensive line job with the Philadelphia Eagles. Segrest had been with the Eagles in the past, and was being reported as a virtual done deal by many outlets across the nation, including ESPN and radio stations in Philly.

Or not.

It would appear that Segrest was probably a top candidate, and decided to stay in Fayetteville. Was that because he was fired last time he was in Philly? Maybe. Segrest has helped put together a great recruiting class of defensive lineman for the Hogs this year, and did a good job stopping the running attacks of both Heisman winner Derrick Henry and LSU’s Leonard Fournette.

However, he also had one of the worst pass rushing lines in the conference, only accounting for 20 sacks a team in 2015. Also, he’s in charge of special teams development at Arkansas. That’s not the blocking, but it’s the kicking, returns, and everything else. Something that hasn’t been great at Arkansas in the last few years.

Seriously, there has to be someone on the UofA campus that can put a kickoff into the endzone.

Overall, this is a good thing. Segrest isn’t a bad coach by any means, and now that he actually is getting some speedy pass rushers on the line, hopefully we’ll see some pressure being put on QBs this year.

Football Recruiting is in Full Swing

Finally, let’s talk recruiting. As I said previously on here, this past weekend was the most important weekend in Bret Bielema’s time as the Arkansas football coach. While there are still a couple weeks to National Signing Day, which is when we’ll finally get a full picture of how successful these recruiting weekends were, Bielema has already gotten some good news from one of the visitors on the 23rd.

Giovanni LaFrance, a 3 star linebacker from Louisiana, has committed to the Hogs. He is a huge get for Bielema and Smith, as LaFrance could contribute immediately to the thin Razorbacks linebacker roster. LaFrance is just the first commit from this weekend, but the Hogs have done a dynamite job of going into Louisiana and Texas this year for big time recruits.

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With LaFrance’s commitment, Arkansas should jump back into the top 25 classes in the country. (The Hogs fell out when they lost previous LB commit Jordan Carmouche.) This class is shaping up to be something special for the Arkansas Razorbacks, and there’s a chance that it ends up being one of the highest rated classes in Hogs history (since they started ranking classes, at least.)

Woo Pig.