Kam Shanks' return threat could help Hogs in 2025
Arkansas wide receiver Kam Shanks will be on the field in multiple phases with the Razorbacks’ offense this season, but the special teams unit is where he can provide the most impact.
A finalist for the Jet Award last fall and recently named to this year’s preseason list, Shanks led the country in punt return yards with 329 and touchdowns with two. He technically had three, but one was called back.
He actually played inside Razorback Stadium last season when the Hogs faced UAB. Shanks didn’t have any returns that game, and that was because special teams coordinator Scott Fountain had a plan for him.
“I remember he was like an SEC returner,” Punter Devin Bale said. “All of those teams we played, I mean, all those guys in the SEC are going to be good returners for the most part. But yeah, he was one of the better returners we had faced and the whole goal was try and be an NFL punter. Try to be an NFL cover team and don’t let him get any return yards. That was pretty much the whole goal was hit the ball high enough so he can’t return the ball.”
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How Kam Shanks got to Arkansas
Fountain said he asks head coach Sam Pittman often if they can go out and get a punt returner, and last offseason Fountain got the green light to get one.
“Most of the time I go to Coach Pittman and say ‘Hey, can we go get us a punt returner?'” Fountain said. And he says, ‘well, we’ll find somebody in who we’re recruiting.’ Last year, he said, ‘go find one,’ so I started looking in the portal. Who’s the best returner out there? And as they get in the portal, you start stacking ’em in the order.
“But if you watch Kam’s film last year, he had three house calls in one season. One got called back, so it got annulled, but he was impressive [and] did some good things.”
What Shanks’ teammates said about him
Because the coaches had a previous scouting report on Shanks, Arkansas long snapper Ashton Ngo said they knew how deadly he can be.
“That quick, shifty, side-to-side movement is very good,” Ngo said. “And that’s kind of something when we were scouting Kam last year before we played them, we knew he was going to be a guy that can gash us if we made mistakes. So trying to go out there and be perfect was what our plan was, and to have him on our side now, we take advantage of it big time when it comes to big-time games.”
Shanks and the rest of the Razorbacks will be back in action for Day 4 of fall camp on Monday morning. Be sure to stay tuned to HawgBeat for more coverage of Arkansas football. Subscribe to HawgBeat right now for $1 and also receive a free year of The Athletic for new members.
