FAYETTEVILLE — It may not receive the same attention as the cornerback or backup running back races, but Arkansas also has a battle brewing on special teams.
Now just 18 days from their season opener in Fayetteville, the Razorbacks have yet to settle on either super senior Sam Loy or redshirt junior Reid Bauer as their starting punter.
Both players have experience as the team’s marquee punter – Bauer in 2018 and 2020, Loy in 2019 – and a back-and-forth competition has special teams coordinator Scott Fountain holding out on naming the Week 1 starter.
“The punting job, they’re going to battle it out, and probably at some point next week — mid-to-late week — we’ll kind of decide on who that guy is going to be,” Fountain said. “That’s really been a good battle this spring, this summer, and of course right now in camp.”
A third punter, George Caratan, was in the mix during the spring, but he has since entered the transfer portal, making it a two-man race.
Fountain said Loy came out of spring ball as the leader and head coach Sam Pittman said he was still the No. 1 until suffering an injury earlier in camp. It sounds like Bauer took advantage of the opportunity, as he punted well in Saturday’s scrimmage and isn’t going away quietly.
“He’s just a scrappy guy,” Pittman said. “He’s like ‘You’re not beating me out.’ I think that’s two years in a row that there may have been other plans for somebody to punt and there he goes, running out there.”
Bauer won the starting job as a true freshman in 2018, but averaged just 38.9 yards on 56 punts. Last season, he took over for Caratan after a few games and increased that to a 43.5-yard average on 39 punts.
After beginning his career at Vanderbilt and spending one year at Colorado, Loy came to Arkansas in 2019 and beat out Bauer for the starting job. His 39.5-yard average may not have jumped off the page, but he had elite hang time that led to few returns.
Kickers Matthew Phillips and Cam Little are also capable of punting, but they are focusing their efforts on placekicking and kickoffs. The only other true punter on the roster is freshman Patrick Foley and he may prove to be an option in the future.
“The Foley kid we brought in from Nebraska has surprised me and done well for us, as well,” Fountain said. “The thing that he brings with him, he’s a Midwest kid, so he has kicked in wind a lot, and here I find we have wind here at times, and he’s not bad when he’s kicking into the wind, which is a tough trait for any kid.”
For now, though, it appears to be Loy vs. Bauer. What makes this battle so interesting is that they’re also fighting for another role on the team.
With holding evolving into a responsibility of the punters under Fountain, long snapper Jordan Silver offered a first-hand look at how they’re doing in that aspect of the game.
“Sam is a great holder,” Silver said. “Reid Bauer has definitely excelled. He used to not even hold. He wasn’t on the depth chart for holder last year and now he’s right up there battling it out, neck and neck, with Sam.”