Ashton Ngo earns scholarship, Eli Stein leaves Hogs

FAYETTEVILLE — Eli Stein has opted to leave the team and Ashton Ngo has been awarded the final scholarship the Hogs had left for 2024.

Sam Pittman confirmed Stein had left the team and Ngo was now on scholarship Wednesday during his appearance on the SEC Teleconference.

“Well, that’s between Eli and myself, but he’s no longer on the team,” Pittman said. “You’re correct about that, and I’ll go into that a little bit more detail next week. Ashton Ngo, I put him on scholarship — I can’t remember what day, I think maybe Monday. Maybe Sunday. So he’s on scholarship, yes. Then we had the one, but because we’ve already started school, we don’t have another one available now. That was the one I had to use. We can’t just cut a scholarship, so that one won’t become available until January.

“Ashton Ngo was our starter at punt snapping anyway. And it was a very close battle with the short snapping, so he was gonna be that regardless of what happened and certainly will take over the short snapping as well.”

Pittman was asked about the health and mood of team as they are one day away from opening the season.

“Yeah, I think we’re in great shape,” Pittman said. “Anytime we’ve had days before bye weeks, opening games, we’ve come out pretty well. We’ve won most of those games. I think Georgia’s beat us. Other than that, we’ve been well and good condition and ready to play. Feel really good about that. Just have a few question marks. Probably whether… Andrew Armstrong would be one of those guys, whether he’s going to be able to play. Other than that, I think we’re in good shape.”

Armstrong being out or limited possibly opens up more opportunities for Monte Harrison, the freshman from professional baseball.

“Yeah, exactly,” Pittman said. “I think CJ Brown would be in that conversation as well. But exactly, those two guys and of course we could have another wide receiver personnel with getting (Isaac) TeSlaa on the field as well.”

Pittman went into more detail on Armstrong and also mentioned the health of running back Rashod Dubinion.

“Yeah, I don’t know that Andrew’s quite ready,” Pittman said. “Certainly, he won’t start. He’ll be available. R-Dub will play, and we feel like he’s healthy enough. More importantly, he feels like he’s healthy enough to play. He won’t start, but he’ll be available there. Both of them are available. I see R-Dub with an opportunity to play a little more than I do with Andrew.”

Last week, Travis Williams, the defensive coordinator, said he feels the defense is deeper this season.

“Yes, great answer,” Pittman said. “I think we have to and I think we have to early to find out exactly what we have on a game day. We know what we have in practice. They’ve earned the right to get on the field. I just feel like you find out so much more about them on a Saturday afternoon, or in this case, tomorrow night. But certainly think we’re deeper than we’ve been in the past. The competition is better, so we’ve got to play more people, keep us a little fresher, especially with the heat here early in the season.”

Arkansas is a 49.5-point favorite over UAPB, but the competition steps up tremendously the following week against Oklahoma State. Pittman was asked what are the biggest questions he has entering the season?

“I want to be able to run the ball,” Pittman said. “Offensively, protect, see if we can get precise routes. Accurate throws. We’ve got to establish our effort. We’ve got to establish who we are as the team, and we’ve got to start fast. Defensively, we need to start fast. We need to show our physicality. Those are some things that we certainly need to see, and want to see, and expect to see.”

Pittman said he has had conversations with Hunter Yurachek about future games in Little Rock beyond 2025.

“Yeah, we’ve spoken about it, but it’s a very delicate situation,” Pittman said. “I want to make this very clear — we are not looking to, ‘We have to go to Little Rock.’ We are not approaching it that way. We’re taking our team on the road to put on a show for the folks that can’t get here to Northwest Arkansas and the folks that want to travel. We are excited to go over there.

“But I think there’s going to be a conversation. We’ve had them as well about the length of playing in Little Rock to be perfectly honest with you. But I want to make it very clear we’re excited. As long as we play over in Little Rock, we’re damn excited to go play over there.”