Arkansas’s Fayetteville — In a post on his X account on Sunday night, Arkansas Razorbacks running back Braylen Russell stated that he has no plans to rejoin the team for the upcoming campaign.
Last week, Russell—a true freshman—entered the transfer portal but, just hours later, changed his mind. This season, the 6-1, 253-pound Benton native participated in nine games and started two of them. Russell ran 47 times for 304 yards (6.5 average.) with two touchdowns in 2024 as a true freshman.
With a 62-yard effort in an unexpected victory over the No. 4-ranked Tennessee Volunteers that caused a field storm, he was on the verge of making his debut in the middle of 2024. When senior tailback Ja’Quinden Jackson opted to miss several weeks due to persistent injuries a few weeks later, Russell ran for a career-high 175 yards against Mississippi State before being disabled in the fourth quarter by a hamstring injury.
With Rashod Dubinion undergoing surgery and Jackson entering his name in the NFL Draft, Arkansas was hoping to have Russell healthy for the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Tyrell Reed, Rodney Hill, and true freshman JuJu Pope are the only three healthy scholarship running backs left for the Razorbacks.
During the press conference on Thursday, coach Sam Pittman stated that he will extend an invitation to return to players who want to use the transfer portal correctly. Russell seemed to have made the correct choice, but he later changed his mind.
“There’s been several surprises,” Pittman stated. “What you need to do is figure out that the agents are currently calling schools at random and asking, ‘How much would you pay Joey if he gets into the portal?’…” The agent then returns to the child and informs them, “Hey, so-and-so offered you X amount of dollars.” It’s great that the young man wants to earn money; that’s the portal’s purpose. “Hey coach, whatever we agreed on, that’s not the number,” he says as he enters. It’s this number.
“If it was a fallacy of their communication with their agent, I would definitely welcome any of those individuals who did it the right way back. Some guys have astonished me by announcing that they plan to transfer. Usually, it comes down to money, and after a 6-6 squad, we have to decide what we’re willing to do.”
