Mitchell garners respect for Arkansas’ back seven.
FAYETTEVILLE - Finally somebody on the Arkansas Razorbacks defensive back seven catches something besides flak for his 2013 performance.
Braylon Mitchell, the Razorbacks senior outside linebacker and graduate of Heber Springs High, emerged Monday as a surprising choice on the watch list for the Butkus Award, the award voted in December to the nation's outstanding linebacker.
Mitchell, or any Razorbacks linebacker or defensive back, would be considered a national award watch list surprise. In most every post mortem of the Razorbacks, 3-9 season for 2013 which concluded with nine consecutive defeats and 0-8 SEC ignominy, the linebackers and secondary take the defensive heat for what went wrong.
After all, up front ends Trey Flowers, returning as a senior this season already on the watch lists of the Lombardi Award, Bednarik Award and Nagurski Trophy, and 2013 senior and 2014 Jacksonville Jaguars NFL draft pick, both earned various second-team All-SEC honors last season.
Defensive tackle Darius Philon, now a sophomore, led the Razorbacks defensive linemen in tackles (46) last year and drew rave reviews as a midseason starter.
However the Butkus Award com- mittee obviously took note that Mitchell's 77 tackles tied graduated senior 2013 linebacker Jarrett Lake on the team last year and perhaps monitored his improvement during spring drills.
Mitchell, 6-3, 235, came first to Coach Bret Bielema's mind discussing the spring drills linebackers progress also judged by linebackers coach Randy Shannon and new defensive coordinator Robb Smith.
"Braylon Mitchell, Martrell
Spaight and Brooks Ellis and Otha Peters, those four guys have been pretty impressive to me," Bielema said at the close of spring practice. "I think Randy's honed in on those guys."
Mitchell is the lone senior 3-year letterman of the group (Spaight is a senior second-year junior col- lege transfer) and the one sophomore Ellis looks to even while calling signals as the middle linebacker.
"He has a lot of experience and is a great leader," Ellis said. " He knows what to do and has been around so long."
Long enough as a fifthyear senior redshirted in 2010 to have practiced under three different head coaches, four different coordinators and four different position coaches.
He says he likes the current triumvirate he works under, Bielema, Smith and Shannon, and especially likes the style that Smith brought last spring.
"It definitely is the most physical defense I have been a part of," Mitchell said after last spring's RedWhite game. "Coach Smith preaches physicality day in and day out.
"This is what he expects of us and we go out there and do it. One thing Coach Smith has been preaching is physicality and takeaways. "
Shannon, who's now in his second year at Arkansas as is Bielema, pushed the linebackers last spring farther than he pushed them breaking in a new regime last year, Mitchell said.
"Last year Coach Shannon was a little bit more loose with us," Mitchell said at spring drills' close. "This spring he is expecting a lot more out of us because we all are more veterans now. We know we have what it takes to help this defense win."
The expectations only rise with the Razorbacks starting practice August third with a linebacker on the Butkus Award watch list primed to lead the back seven off the back burner.