Braylen Russell's battle to earn RB1 not getting easier going into 2025 season

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part 2 of a series featuring home grown Arkansans competing for playing time for the 2025 Razorback football team.

With the recent down tick in the Arkansas Razorback football program's ability to maximize keeping highly regarded in-state prospects in the fold, pressure grows on those that stay home to represent. Arkansas' smaller population, investments in high school development and decline in regional media outlets relative to surrounding Southeastern Conference (SEC) rivals increase the challenges to follow the Lou Holtz formula of "putting a fence around Arkansas" with each passing season.

The home grown talents who choose to accept the invitation to join Razorback Nation always find no shortage of stiff competition to showcase themselves on the national stage. The SEC provides the grandest stage of them all so the best Arkansas has to offer often find themselves in heated competition each spring, summer and fall. That competition is not only with four and five stars from surrounding states but also those over looked and under recruited elsewhere.

Braylen Russell's Battle for RB1

So for Arkansas' born and bred studs like Benton's Braylen Russell, Little Rock's Quincy Rhodes, E'Marion Harris and Charlie Collins, Pine Bluff's Courtney Crutchfield, Warren's Antonio Jordan, Fort Smith's Kobe Branham and Bentonville's C.J. Brown here's looking at you kids. Good fortune in the wars to come.

Back to the Wall

Similar to Harris and Branham, the super-sized halfback, Russell, is enduring a school of hard knocks to claim a regular starting position for the 2025 Razorbacks. He played a leading role in Arkansas’ two most impressive wins last season against Tennessee and at Mississippi State. 

His best run of the season — a 75-yard walk in the park at Starkville — was cut short when his hamstring gave out from under his then 250-pound chassis. His absence during the rest of the regular season was sorely missed as Arkansas went on to lose three of their final four contests down the stretch. 

After flirting repeatedly with the idea of greener pastures elsewhere, Russell ultimately decided to stay home, but he looked more like a decoy during the team’s Liberty Bowl win over Texas Tech. The starting halfback job seemed all his until New York native Mike Washington arrived out of the portal via New Mexico. 

During spring practices and much of the summer, Washington has looked like an upgrade of Ja'Quinden Jackson — the transfer out of Utah who won the starting job over Russell his freshman year. If Russell thought anything was going to be handed to him this time around, he’s since learned earning his playing time as a sophomore may prove even tougher. 

“Now that he knows and understands that he attacks,” Razorback running backs coach Kolby Smith said. “With Rodney (Hill) having a year of experience under his belt and Mike coming in and all of them gunning for that number one spot, it made him realize that, ‘Hey, it’s not just going to be given to me. I’ve got to earn it every day.’ 

“Now that he sees that, we’re getting the Braylen that we need to have. That’s the tough minded, battle strong, ready-to-go, I-know-what-I’m-doing, you don’t have to tell me twice attitude.”

Smith added there was never a question that Russell’s physical gifts make him invaluable in one of the offense's most  indispensable abilities: pass blocking. However when it comes to attacking a defense as a runner, Washington and Hill are second to none. 

“The competition has really ramped up in our room,” Smith said. “That has everybody playing at a high level. Especially Braylen with the spring that we had. It wasn’t what we wanted and we sat down and we talked about it. He knows that he has to go hard every day in practice in order to earn what he wants to get.

“We did not have the explosive runs. We did not have the finish. We didn’t have the right reads or speed on track. None of that was where it needs to be, but this is a total night and day difference from where he is today from where he was in the spring. "

Smith and offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino have sent videos of great runners Russell’s size who utilized their combination of size, speed and power to maximum effect. Smith said the trio gives Arkansas a prototype of all-three running styles at their disposal. 

“I feel like our competition has been great,” Russell said. “We have a very good diverse room. We all can do different things so I feel like us competing in the room is getting us better for what’s to come out there on the field.”

Petrino, who recruited Russell while OC at Texas A&M agrees, but feels runners equipped to do everything at the highest level are few and far between. 

“He’s much more focused. He’s working extremely hard at understanding the plays and then the blocking within the play and how to press blocks and then accelerate out of it. If he’ll do a good job of pressing blocks, he’ll set the linebackers and then his acceleration through the hole with his size, they’re going to bounce off of him. So I’ve been really happy with that. 

“We want him to be the physical guy, the guy that takes a 2-yard play to a 5-yard gain. That’s a great run. A 5-yard hit on his hips and they bounce off and he goes the distance. He can go the distance now. He’s an unbelievable athlete. I mean, for how big he is, he can jump, turn, catch the ball. I recruited him out of high school to A&M, so I spent a lot of time studying him.”

 He lined up at tight end, caught seams down the middle. I mean, an unbelievable athlete. So we’re just trying to get him to get the mindset that he’s the hammer, not the nail, and he’s the one doing the explosion and the hitting.”