Fernando Carmona making early impact at Arkansas, in SEC

FAYETTEVILLE — Pro Football Focus rated Fernando “Junior” Carmona the No. 2 offensive tackle from the transfer portal in the Class of 2024.

While that is very high praise, it would honestly be very hard to imagine a better one somewhere else. Carmona is the real deal and will be playing on Sundays once he leaves Arkansas. Carmona, 6-5, 324, is a redshirt junior and yes he’s that good. He proves it each day he steps on the practice field at Arkansas.

Standout defensive end Landon Jackson had high praise of Carmona last week and following Tuesday’s practice the offensive tackle returned the praise.

“Ah, dude, he’s an awesome dude and he’s a competitor,” Carmona said. “He brings it every single day at practice and as a player and a teammate, that’s all I can ask for. He gives that to me every day. He’s an awesome dude off the field, even on the field, we try to take care of each other, but at the same time we’re going at it. So being able to go against a competitor who is that good, I’m truly blessed. I can’t ask for anything more.”

Carmona said going against the likes of Jackson in practice and the SEC greats he will face in the fall helped lead to his decision to play for the Hogs. Carmona talked about the difference in playing at Arkansas and San Jose State.

“I would probably say just not winning every rep,” Carmona said. “It’s different when you’re going up against Landon Jackson. I had a really rough day two days ago. It’s good, though. You need those rough days to become great. That’s just been the biggest thing, the speed and the competition that I’m going up against. It’s all I could really ask for, and that’s kind of the reason why I transferred. I want to get good reps at practice and I’m getting that right now with guys like EG (Eric Gregory), guys like Landon. There’s a bunch of different guys on that defense that really bring it every day and make it challenging.”

Other than talent level anything else drastically different than San Jose State?

“No, man, I think just kind of the group of guys are kind of the same,” Carmona said. “It’s a little bit different being out here in the south. They talk a little bit different, but other than that it’s about the same.”

Tuesday marked the fourth practice this spring. Carmona reflected back on how the four days have gone to this point.

“I’d say competitive, man,” Carmona said. “That’s been the biggest thing. I think the joy of playing ball right now. I think everybody’s kind of had this built up I don’t want to say anger, but excitement for playing football. We’ve been lifting for 7 weeks and once we were done with those 7 weeks it’s like ‘all right’ and we turned it up into an extra gear and it’s time to go and we really feel that right now.”

While Carmona is starting at left tackle it seems no resentment has been noticed with his teammates to observers. Carmona confirmed that on Tuesday.

“Dude, they’ve been awesome,” Carmona said. “They really brought me in with open arms. I think I’m just really trying to change the offensive line culture that we had and I feel like the team’s starting to feel that and they can feel our energy starting to wear off onto them. And everybody’s kind of starting to give us their energy and so it’s really meshing well and I’m enjoying it right now.”

Not only is Carmona and four other offensive linemen new, but so is the assistant coach Eric Mateos who is in charge of the unit.

“It’s been amazing,” Carmona said. “The standard is up here and every day you’re trying to reach it and it feels like you can’t really reach out because it’s just so high. But that’s what you want as an offensive linemen. You really want somebody who’s going to push you to your max every day and he does that. He brings the energy and he works us hard and I’m truly blessed to have him as my coach.”

Carmona also went into more detail on what he meant when he referred to changing the culture at Arkansas.

“I feel like as an offensive line, you kind of have to be the catalyst for the offense,” Carmona said. “And I feel like … I’m not really sure, I wasn’t here last year, but I heard it wasn’t really that way. And so this year we’ve really tried to bring the energy to practice, hustle to the ball and just be together as a group. As an offensive line you have to be the closest group on the team and people really feel that. That’s what we’re trying to do right now.”

Carmona was joined by Michigan State offensive tackle Keyshawn Blackstock and Tennessee center Addison Nichols as first-teamers this spring. The trio arrived in January.

“Man, it’s been seamless,” Carmona said. “Those guys have really accepted us in, and I think for all the transfers, too, we were willing to just kind of open our minds up. Just try to be as friendly as possible and also realize we’re all different. We’re coming from different scenarios, but this is going to be our unit and we have to blend together, and we’ve done that right now.”

The trio of transfers are joined on the first unit by Patrick Kutas and Joshua Braun at the two guard spots. The offensive line struggled last season. Have Kutas and Braun talked about that much?

“It’s mainly a flush thing,” Carmona said. “Actually funny enough, a lot of the people that are talking about it would be the people on different positions like the wide receivers, but they’re all positive. They’re all like ‘Man, the way you guys are talking this year. The way you guys are bonding together.’ It’s more of the other people noticing what we’re doing and how we’re changing. I just think in the offensive line room, we’re just trying to flush it and not really think about it. This is a whole new group of guys and we’re rolling with these guys and that’s all that matters right now.”

This spring, Sam Pittman has been spending several minutes each day working with the offensive line. Carmona likes to see the head coach placing that much emphasis on the unit.

“It’s been huge,” Carmona said. “Obviously, as you know, he was an offensive line coach and that was kind of the main reason why I wanted to come here. He told me that he was going to be with the offensive line more and he’s really stuck to that word. He’s just been getting over there, just giving us some gold nuggets to really take with us. Obviously, we got Eric Mateos as our o-line coach. He’s coming over there and he’s bringing in his own ideas. Just having those two is like having two offensive line coaches. It’s tremendous because you’re always learning something and you have four eyes on you at all times. So, you can’t really complain. You can’t really mess up.”

Arkansas will hold practice No. 5 on Thursday at 8:25 a.m. before heading to spring break.