Congratulations and Good Luck to Matt Kitchens and Eli Cranor!

SandLizard04 · February 01, 2006, 08:20:31 pm

Russellville's two college signees today.

Kitchens is a 6-foot-1, 225-pound linebacker. Kitchens recorded 148 tackles, including 12 tackles for loss, two sacks, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, five pass break-ups and has one interception for a Class 5A State Playoff team. Earned Arkansas 5A All-State honors, was a two-time 5A West All-Conference selection and a member of the 2005 Arkansas All-Star team. Was a finalist for the State Farm 5A Defensive Player of the Year and was named the River Valley Radio Defensive Player of the Year. In addition, was named a two-time KARV Dream Team member and a two-time River Valley Radio Coaches Choice selection and was named RHS' Defensive Most Valuable Player. Lettered for three seasons with the Cyclones and was named an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Super Sophomore and a Top 35 Junior.

Cranor is a 6-foot-2, 195-pound quarterback. He played for Jeff Holt at Russellville High School where he completed 253 of 418 passes (62.3 percent) for 3,215 yards and 24 touchdowns in the pass-heavy offense...team finished the 2005 season 6-5-1 ...guided Russellville to the class AAAAA state playoff second-round...earned All-State honors as well as All-Conference honors in 2005...as a junior he also earned All-Conference honors...named State Farm Lander's Player of the Week and was a Senior Player of the Week...was a nominee for the State Farm Lander's Award given to the top high school football athlete in the state...received the Scholar Athlete of the Year award and named the Academic Athlete of the Year...Top-Gun participant and named the Offensive Player of the Year for the Courier as well as received a spot on the Courier Dream Team...member of the National Honor Society and named an Arkansas Scholar.

warpaint · February 01, 2006, 08:29:38 pm

So who did they sign with?

SandLizard04 · February 01, 2006, 08:32:29 pm

Quote from: warpaint on February 01, 2006, 08:29:38 pm
So who did they sign with?

I guess that is kind of important huh? Haha.

Matt will continue his career in Russellville at Arkansas Tech, and Eli is headed to Sun Belt member Florida Atlantic.

olddog79 · February 01, 2006, 08:46:43 pm

Best of luck guys.

rebelman11 · February 01, 2006, 08:56:25 pm

Well thats good.

RHS · February 01, 2006, 11:17:15 pm

Heard about Eli the other day on DTS. Best of luck to him. Hopefully he'll continue the tradition of Russellville QB's on the next level.

Glad I'll be able to watch Kitchens the next few years of his career.

SouthpawSensation · February 04, 2006, 06:55:05 pm

Fantastic news for both Matt and Eli. Both are great players and great people as well. The quality doesn't get much better than those two.

bknight33 · February 06, 2006, 09:37:58 am

What is amazing is that Jeff Holt continues to pump QB's to the next level, and yet has never garnished any attention like Mr Malzahn.

SouthpawSensation · February 06, 2006, 06:58:19 pm

Yet those QBs that Holt seem to produce at Russellville manages to bypass Arkansas Tech. Does anybody else find that peculiar?

RHS · February 06, 2006, 07:15:37 pm

Well would you play D-2 or goto UA is you had the choice? Also factor into Leach's decision that he wanted to play baseball, and at that time the UA had Pagnozzi on staff as a volunteer coach.

UCA offered Nathan a lot more than Tech could.

Don't know much about Eli's story, but he gets to goto Florida.

SouthpawSensation · February 06, 2006, 09:08:35 pm

It's pure, plain and simple when it comes to Tech and its recruiting process: the only way a River Valley athlete gets a schlolarship offer from the Wonder Boys is if somebody else makes a bid and Tech feels challenged to get this player. But that philosophy has burned the Wonder Boys from time to time, the latest being last November when Tech was torched by none other than Nathan Brown.