FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas held a scrimmage on Saturday and following Scott Fountain, who coordinates the special teams, reflected back on it.

Freshman kicker Scott Starzyk struggled during the scrimmage missing multiple field goal attempts. Fountain compared Starzyk's kicking to that of Cam Little his freshman season.

"That’s why you want to scrimmage," Fountain said. "Get over here and kick. You know, Cam Little, when he got here his first year, the first scrimmage, of course this one was a little later because we had issues with weather and all that, but his first scrimmage here I think Cam left the stadium about 36% that day. I think Scott’s probably about 48% today. Three of those field goals were pretty long. 52, 53 and 50, I think. But yeah, he’s done really well. This week, we started backing him up a little bit because the key is you want to get him confident with mid-range field goals, and then you want to get him out here and see what he can do from a distance. Blake Ford I think made a 54-yarder, which was good. Blake’s got a really strong leg."

Fountain also talked about the scrimmage and what he saw from it.

"I thought offense and defense really got after it," Fountain said. "I feel like on special teams, first two punts, we punted really well. Devin (Bale) had a nice punt. I think it was about a 55-yard punt, and Gavin Rush also had I think a 50-yard punt, so that was good. We come back later in the scrimmage, had a blocked punt, which I thought was good with our punt block unit. We’re kind of stressing both. Everything is a win and loss when you’re doing the teams, but I thought the guys got after it. I feel like we got some good, athletic kids that we brought in through the portal, which I think is really going to help us in all of our teams."

Wide receiver Shamar Easter was who blocked the punt and Fountain also praised another on special teams.

"He did, he did a good job," Fountain said. "I'll tell you another guy stood out, and I was really excited for Shamar to make that play, but also Donovan Whitten, who's from down from Arkadelphia, Arkansas. I think he'll have an opportunity to play some teams for us this year. That's one of his strengths. He's pretty good in practice at blocking kicks."

At midterm, Arkansas signed UAB's Kam Shanks as a wide receiver. Shanks was also a first-team All-America punt returner. He had a 15-yard touchdown reception against the Razorbacks last fall. While he's projected to help at wide receiver obviously, but Fountain has plans for him with the special teams maybe beyond punt returner.

"I tell you, we did think he would be a great punt returner," Fountain said. "He’s shown us that. We really like his skills on that. He had a phenomenal year last year at UAB, but the thing that’s been surprising, he’s been really good on some other units. He’s done well playing some gunner and anti-gunner, I’m sorry, gunner and end for us on punt, and then he’s also done a nice job on kickoff. He’s just a really fluid athlete in space, but yeah, our first thing we’ll use him for I think will be punt return. But he’ll bring some value on some other units as well."

Bale was the punter last season and also handled the kickoff duties.

"I’ll tell you, he’s had a great spring," Fountain said. "Gosh, Tuesday, he finished the day on Tuesday, I think with his average being around 52 yards on the day. He had five punts that day and Pittman called him off, he said, ‘Gosh dang, that was awesome.’ I’ve really talked Devin up, but Devin has had a great spring. Today he had a really nice punt and another punt that wasn’t as nice. But he’s had a great spring, much better than he did a year ago. I like where he’s headed.

"As far as kickoffs, I think right now it’s probably a battle between him and Blake Ford. Blake has a really strong leg. The value Devin brings, he’s also a great tackler, if y’all saw him last year. It’s hard to take that tackler off the field, but Blake really has a strong leg. So, I think it’d be great if Blake could take that off of him, but I know Devin would be ready if we need him to do that."

The spring game is Saturday at 1 p.m.