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Taylen and Bobby II: Green, Petrino look for bigger, better things

FAYETTEVILLE — Quarterbacks in the second year under the tutelage of Bobby Petrino have been, almost without fail, wildly more productive than they were in their first seasons.

Arkansas fans will obviously recall 2010, when Ryan Mallett broke school records with 3,869 passing yards, 32 touchdown passes and 3,795 total yards in his second season as a starter for Petrino as head coach.

Another prime example is Lamar Jackson’s 2016 season at Louisville, when he won the Heisman Trophy with 3,543 passing yards, an incredible 5,114 total yards and 51 touchdowns. Also, Brian Brohm at Louisville led the Big East in passing with 2,883 yards in 2005 in Petrino’s third season as a head coach.

Therefore, it’s natural to think Taylen Green is prepared for a blockbuster 2025 season for the Razorbacks, for whom Petrino is entering his second season as offensive coordinator.

“I mean, his knowledge of defenses is way better,” Petrino said of Green this week. “So he understands, which allows you to make quicker decisions. His accuracy has really improved. His technique helps that.

“He’s an unbelievably coachable young man and he works hard at his technique and that’s helped him extremely. He knows the offense, too, so that makes it better. That makes everything work a little quicker.”

Green has admitted his move to Arkansas last season after three years at Boise State was an eye-opener, and Petrino said the same.

“It was a pretty big jump from the speed of Boise State to the speed of the SEC, so it took him a while to get used to that,” Petrino said. “Windows close like that, defensive ends are up the field like that. So I think you’ll see his maturity.”

Green said being the quarterback for Petrino comes with big responsibilities.

“I love being coached by him, one of the best, if not the top offensive coordinator in the country,” Green said at SEC media days. “I know I’m a senior, but I feel like a freshman when I walk into the meeting room. It’s a classroom experience. He can draw up every single look versus a certain play. I like the information that he has. It’s a blessing just to be coached by him.”

Green said his knowledge of the system is the biggest difference between his first and second years at Arkansas.

“I would just say my comfortability,” he said. “Last year I was nervous and wide-eyed coming from the Mountain West (Conference). So now I’m just knowing what to expect from the experience I have and I’m getting to apply it.”

Green might have been anxious in his first SEC season in 2024, but his numbers reflect that of a productive quarterback, even while working behind an offensive line that did not grade out well. The 6-6, 224-pounder from Lewisville, Texas, completed 230 of 381 passes (60.4%) for 3,154 yards, with 15 passing touchdowns, 23 total touchdowns and 9 interceptions. His 3,756 total yards rank second in a single season at Arkansas behind Mallett’s total in 2010.

Green is one of only two returning quarterback in the FBS (along with Oklahoma’s John Mateer) who passed for 3,000-plus yards and rushed for 600-plus yards last season.

Green’s toughness was on display the second half of last season as well, as his numbers continued to be well despite suffering a knee injury in the fourth quarter of the Razorbacks’ 19-14 upset of No. 4 Tennessee on Oct. 5 that hampered him the rest of the way.

“The kid’s worked his butt off,” Arkansas strength and conditioning coach Ben Sowders said the day before camp opened. “He’s a tough sucker. I mean, what he dealt with the last seven games of our season, in the bowl game, a lot of people wouldn’t even play.

“I’ll just keep it like that. Long story short, he’s a tough kid. He’s put on 10 pounds . and his speed, the last two weeks of summer, is really trending up. So his speed’s only going to get better.”

Green said last season’s injury had an unexpected benefit.

“It made me stay in the pocket a little bit more and use my arm a little bit, and that’s what I love about last year and about spring and fall,” he said. “I can’t really run that much, so I look at it as a different perspective of homing in on my passing game, my footwork, which Coach Petrino is always on me about.”

Green and redshirt freshman quarterback KJ Jackson are hoping to build off big scrimmage performances in Saturday’s final major scrimmage. Coach Sam Pittman said Green threw five or six touchdown passes and controlled the offense last Saturday just as you’d want from a second-year quarterback in a system, and Jackson “had a very productive day.”

Jackson has not thrown an incompletion as a collegian, as he went 4 for 4 for 59 yards in the 70-0 season-opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff behind Green and Malachi Singleton. Petrino had Singleton prepared for key backup duty in 2024 and now Jackson is in that position.

“KJ made some really good throws,” Petrino said of last Saturday’s scrimmage. “He’s matured extremely well since a year ago. The one thing we asked him to do over the summer and here in camp is to . get better accuracy, and he’s done that. He’s really improved on his accuracy, which helps him perform better.”

Jackson had a reputation for getting down on himself after a bad play and letting it affect his work, but he’s also improved on that aspect of his game.

Petrino describes him as being very intelligent.

“He picks up things up really well,” he said. “When you ask questions in the meeting room, he’s the first one that wants to answer it. He sometimes jumps in there and answers it when I want someone else to answer it. But he does a great job with that.”

Petrino gave an example of how Jackson can be tough on himself.

“He was like, OK, we had an 88-play scrimmage and he played really, really good for 84 of those plays,” Petrino said. “And you say, ‘KJ, what’d you think? How did you do today?’ The first thing he would do is recite the four plays that he didn’t do a good job on.

“So we’re working on that. As a quarterback you have to take that and throw it behind you and then focus on the next play. He had a hard time doing that as a freshman and even to start the first week or two of spring ball. But I think he’s really matured and learned.”

Jackson, a 6-4, 220-pound left-hander from Montgomery, Ala., said his time in Fayetteville has been productive.

“It’s been awesome, getting in here with Taylen, coming in at the same time, and just really growing through Coach Petrino’s offense with him,” Jackson said. “We got to bounce a lot of stuff off each other, and it wasn’t like I was too much of the new guy, because we were all coming in at the same time. We got to learn together. And Fayetteville as a city, I love it. It reminds me a lot of home, so I’m loving everything about it.”

Jackson also said his quarterback IQ is also on the rise while learning under Petrino.

“I feel like the biggest thing is just understanding coverages and his concepts to beat the coverages, different pressures,” Jackson said. “Like in high school, I had no idea about it, for real, and he’s taught me almost everything I know about football now, so it’s been great.”

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Tom Murphy

Tom Murphy is a sports reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A graduate of Louisiana Tech University, he is a member of the Football Writers Association of America and voter for the Heisman Trophy and AP Top 25 football poll. He was voted the 2017 Arkansas Sportswriter of the Year.

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