Arkansas relying on Cunningham to anchor line
Arkansas offensive lineman Myron Cunningham sets up to block against San Jose State during an NCAA college football game in Fayetteville during the 2019 season.
FAYETTEVILLE — Jimmy Smith coaches running backs for the University of Arkansas, but as a former quarterback at Tennessee State he also has an acute awareness of what an offensive tackle means to that position.
Specifically, Smith knows what left tackle Myron Cunningham means as the blindside protector for new starting quarterback KJ Jefferson.
“Dependable,” Smith said when asked for his thoughts on Cunningham's importance. “That's what you want. Dependable.
“He's going to give you what you need every game, and you can rely on him. I played quarterback, so a guy like Myron is a big deal.
“At left tackle, you need somebody you can rely on. He's a dependable guy. That's what he is.”
Cunningham was so dependable last season that he played all 705 offensive snaps as well as 42 on special teams. He's also a big deal physically at 6-6 and 325 pounds.
“Myron is a great, awesome player to me,” said Jefferson, a redshirt sophomore with two career starts. “Protecting my blindside, I have no worries because he perfects the little details and even gets extra work.
“He comes in and talks to me about different stuff and what he saw protection-wise and why he called this protection and what he wants to slide to.”
Cunningham, a fifth-year senior from Warren, Ohio, could be in an NFL training camp right now. Instead, he's back for his third season as a starter after also playing two seasons at Iowa Central Community College.
“He turned down several hundreds of thousands of dollars, in my opinion,” Razorbacks Coach
Sam Pittman said at SEC Media Days last month. “We have a process, and it looked like he was going to go high in the middle rounds of the NFL Draft last year.
“He elected to come back. That tells you something about our coaching staff. Not myself, about our assistant coaching staff.”
Cunningham said a big reason he decided to take advantage of an extra season that was granted to all football players by the NCAA due to the coronavirus pandemic is to help raise his draft stock.
“I think I'm better than a fourth [round pick], or whatever grade,” Cunningham said at SEC Media Days. “So, me coming back under Coach Pittman, and now Coach [Cody] Kennedy, I feel like I have all the tools to project myself into a higher round.”
Pittman was a longtime offensive line coach before becoming the Razorbacks' head coach last season. Kennedy is Arkansas' new offensive line coach. He replaced Brad Davis, who left in June to take the same position at LSU.
Pittman already had hired Kennedy to coach tight ends, and having him take over for Davis was a natural move. Kennedy had been the offensive line coach at Tulane and Southern Mississippi among other stops, and he also was a graduate assistant at Georgia under Pittman in 2018.
Davis returned to his hometown of Baton Rouge while receiving a hefty raise.
“I thought it was a business decision [for Davis],” Cunningham said. “He left for his own reasons, but Coach Kennedy coming in is definitely a great addition to us.
“I feel like we didn't lose a step. All of the guys like him, so that's a positive. He brings a lot of knowledge to the table.”
Cunningham was a third-team preseason AllSEC pick in a media poll.
“I was working out with the offensive line the whole summer, so I was able to witness what Myron was doing, and he busts his tail,” junior running back Trelon Smith said.
“He worked hard, stayed in the film room, lifted weights, was getting bigger and getting stronger, and the whole offensive line followed behind. I feel like he's a good leader.”
Cunningham said he wants to be a better leader.
“It's taken some time,” he said. “But I've definitely been working on it and grown into being more vocal out there on the field.”
Cunningham also has grown into his large frame, adding 40 pounds since he played at 290 in 2019 during his first season at Arkansas.
“I thought it benefited me a lot last year, getting comfortable with it, getting used to it in a game setting,” Cunningham said.
“Compared to 290, it definitely helps a lot out there on the field.”
Junior running back Josh Oglesby said he appreciates Cunningham's work ethic and consistency.
“You know what you're going to get out of him,” Oglesby said. “He's somebody I definitely feel comfortable running behind and I want to run behind.”
A point of emphasis for Cunningham has been sharpening his skills and focusing on the details of playing offensive tackle against the talented defensive ends he'll face every week in SEC play.
“Little things that can get me beat technique-wise,” Cunningham said. “Whether that's hands, eyes, reading the defense before the play even starts.”