MONTICELLO — Little things are often what football players think on when they ask what will make the upcoming season better than the last.
“I would say we’re physical now, going through fall camp,” junior left tackle Jack Chiasson said, nearly one full week into University of Arkansas at Monticello preseason camp. “It’s just started, but it’s become physical. We’re learning that it’s all about the little things. One mistake and the whole play is ruined, the game is ruined, and that spirals into the whole season. So, we’re taking it day by day, step by step and making sure we’re mastering the little things.”
Some stark differences in how the Boll Weevils work out and who’s on the roster from this year to the past are hardly little, however. An athletic performance center for all athletes was unveiled during UAM’s 2023 homecoming, and that launched an ongoing campaign to improve all of its athletic facilities, including the opening of a new locker room last summer and a transformation of 90-year-old Willis “Convoy” Leslie Cotton Boll Stadium to come. (Jackson said 2026 is still the goal for an opening date.)
“Being from Monticello and watching UAM grow, it’s a lot different right now,” said junior defensive lineman K.J. Wells, one of two returning starters up front. “Everything is different from the weight room to the meeting room to this media room. It’s more stuff to get seen (for injuries), to go put in work when you want to put in work by yourself, when you need treatment … we’ve got a training staff who’s going to help us, whatever aches and bones we’ve got, but I feel the weight room is the biggest thing we’ve got. It’s the key.”
Of the 104 players on UAM’s preseason camp, which started last Sunday, nine have experience on the Division I level and five were recently in Football Bowl Subdivision programs — defensive back Charles Thomas from Louisiana-Monroe, linebacker Dajon Doss from Washington State, defensive back Terrell Taylor from Utah State, long snapper Palmer Harris from Arkansas State and offensive lineman Dwayne Orso-Bacchus from Oklahoma.
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They were recruited out of the NCAA transfer portal, and coaches including UAM’s rely on it to build depth at every position while also signing a large recruiting class out of high school. Sixty-nine players already have jersey numbers while the other 45 are fighting for theirs.
“I think we created better competition with more depth,” 15th-year Coach Hud Jackson said. “Guys are tired of being disrespected. We’ve always been so close to turning the corner, and it has to do with what we’re doing, facility-wise.”
The Weevils have yet to post their second winning season overall under Jackson, whose 2018 team went 6-5 in the regular season but lost a bowl game in Corsicana, Texas. The last winning record for UAM came in 2008 — 7-4 under Gwaine Mathews.
UAM went 4-7 last season, doubling its wins from 2023. That did little to convince Great American Conference coaches the Weevils would contend for their first conference title since winning the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference in 1993. UAM was picked in the preseason poll to finish ninth this season, one spot lower than last year’s finish.
“We’ve got guys who are buying in to the excellence of the football team,” said Chiasson, of Cut Off, La. “With that, it’s just going to continue to build and build into a conference championship.”
UAM lost some players to the transfer portal but also graduated playmakers like quarterback Demilon Brown, who spent six years on the roster and set a school record for most career rushing touchdowns with 37. Brown also passed for 7,343 yards and rushed for 3,189 yards, but was hampered by injuries later in his career.
Five men are working out at quarterback with three of them — Kilgore (Texas) College transfer Tyler Webb, Itawamba (Miss.) Community College transfer Tavin Faulk and one-year letterman Austin Wadsworth the frontrunners for the starting role. Wadsworth appeared in three games in 2023 but did not record any stats last year as he was listed behind Brown and Buddy Taylor, who’s now at Tennessee’s Tusculum University.
“We feel like we have productive depth,” Jackson said. “The quarterback is obviously the biggest one, but we’re trying to find a guy we’re not asking to win the game for us. We’re asking our quarterback to manage and get the ball in the hands of some of our playmakers. To me that’s an easy job, but for a quarterback, the ball is snapped and they have the ball in their hands, and they have the mentality they want to do great things, too. For us, a successful quarterback in our offense is someone who manages the game and makes the right reads, gets the ball out in time, makes sure we’re in a good run game, protects us when we have blitzes. (Offensive coordinator Josh) Qualls has done a good job of developing these guys into what we want.”
The Weevils scrimmaged Saturday and will stage a public Green-and-White game Thursday night at Cotton Boll. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m.
