FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas is set to host No. 4 Texas A&M on Saturday as they begin a three-game stretch of home games.

Bobby Petrino is very familiar with quarterback Marcel Reed having coached him in 2023 when he was offensive coordinator at Texas A&M. Reed has completed 102 of 170 passes for 1,490 yards, 12 touchdowns and four interceptions. Reed also has rushed 45 times for 186 yards and three touchdowns.

"Marcel Reed, yeah," Petrino said. "Marcel I know well. He was in the meeting room with me every single day his redshirt year. He’s got tremendous quickness, tremendous speed. He’s kind of a playmaker, not your normal just dropback, stay in the pocket and throw the ball. He moves around, makes plays. He can buy time and make plays. That’s the scary part of it, is when he moves around and keeps his eyes down field, we’re going to have to really work on plastering our man and staying with our man and not coming off who we have because we see him moving. That’ll be a point of emphasis for us defensively this week, for sure. We just have to try to keep him in the pocket, try to collapse the pocket and not give him room. If you can not give him room, then you’ve got an opportunity."

Petrino was asked if he played any role in recruiting Reed?

"He was already committed," Petrino said. "I still became part of it when I got there. Went out and did a home visit, went to the high school, saw him there at the high school. He's a very unique personality, and he was a lot of fun to be around. He enjoys life."

Petrino went on to talk about how Reed has progressed since 2023 as a true freshman.

"Yeah, I mean, he didn't do a whole lot when we were there," Petrino said. "We had three other quarterbacks that were working. Unfortunately, it's kind of like Grayson (Wilson) is right now. When you've made the decision that you're going to redshirt you don't get a lot of reps in practice, so you just kind of have to work the individual drills. And that's one of the reasons why I like doing what we did last night, bringing the freshmen out and guys that didn't play in the game and getting them some reps in our offense so you get to know them a little bit better. But we didn't practice like that there."

Arkansas and Texas A&M will kickoff at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and televised on ESPN.