FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas returned to the practice fields Thursday evening for the 11th time this spring.
The Razorbacks will practice Saturday morning then work on drills twice next week leading up to the spring game on Saturday, April 25, at 2 p.m. The Razorbacks have emphasized special teams this spring and Chad Lunsford, who serves as the unit's coordinator, explained what the Razorbacks opted to do when they got down to only one punter who is redshirt freshman Gavin Rush.
“So, when everything kind of went down with Connor (Smith), we actually … I got reached out to by a young man that's on campus here, that was going to school here, that was a punter, Noah Kalberer, and he we brought him out for the spring," Lunsford said. "He's kind of in a tryout situation, so he's been doing the second-team punting for us. Obviously, we didn't want Gavin taking every punt during the spring. That's not very healthy for his leg and all that. But Noah Kalberer is the guy that we brought in, and he's kind of in tryout mode force for the spring.”
Originally the Razorbacks had counted on Smith, who is a true freshman and enrolled at midterm, to compete with Rush. With Smith unavailable that led the Hogs to sign a punter from the transfer portal this week. Cal Poly's Jesse Ehrlich, 6-2, 200, was signed.
"Yeah, so early on, when I got here, you know, Gavin Rush obviously was a redshirt freshman," Lunsford said. "Has not kicked in or punted in a college game yet. Gavin was a guy that you know, I didn't know a whole lot about, other than what he did in high school and all that. But as I got around him, seeing him, you know, we could tell that he was very talented, and I think he definitely is an SEC starting punter, right? Connor Smith was added, you know, prior to me getting here, and Connor's very talented as well. Unfortunately, Connor had an injury, and it's going to put him out for the season, and so we then had to start looking. We do feel like Gavin's really good and can be good enough to be a starting SEC punter, but you got to have depth. And so we started looking, and, you know, we started looking at who's still left in the transfer portal.
"Obviously, it being after everything going down with the initial transfer portal window. But we were able to find Jesse Ehrlich, who was at Cal Poly. He was in the transfer portal and we were able to bring him on a visit. He's got a lot of game experience. I believe he's … I'm going to be wrong on this, but I think he's got like 36 games of punting experience in college, which was big. He’s talented. We think he's a guy that can come in and push Gavin. I think Gavin, because of where he's at in his career, he does need somebody to come in and compete with. But, you know, I think Gavin can be our starter right now. I think he's really progressing well. Coach Tillman’s done a really good job with him during spring ball. But we felt like, one, we needed a guy to come in and push Gavin, and then we also felt like we needed a guy that if he didn't beat out Gavin, it would be a solid backup for us as well. So really looking forward to getting Jesse here and letting him show what he can do. But it did help our room and help our depth.”
In 2025 at Cal Poly, Ehrlich punted 66 times for an average of 43.08 yards. Of his punts, 17 were fair caught, 12 downed inside the 20 and 10 traveled 50 yards or more.
Thursday's Practice Quick Hits
The defense won the battle on the goal line. In eight tries from the 3-yard line, the offense could only score three times.
Redshirt sophomore Courtney Crutchfield has seemingly made huge progress this spring. At Pine Bluff, Crutchfield was considered one of the top recruits in the state. He attended Missouri for a year and then transferred to Arkansas.
The starting offensive line could be Bryant Williams and Kavion Broussard at tackles, Malachi Breland and Kobe Branham manning the guard spots and Caden Kitler at center.