Greenwood WR Grant Karnes excited about opportunity to play for Arkansas
Another Greenwood athlete got the opportunity to play for the Razorbacks on Thursday.
Greenwood wide receiver Grant Karnes, a recruit in the class of 2025, was running routes at Arkansas' summer football camp on Thursday when Razorbacks wide receiver coach Ronnie Fouch pulled him aside.
Fouch had been watching Karnes for a while, and was impressed enough with what he saw that he extended an opportunity to play at Arkansas to Karnes.
"Well, obviously it felt really good," Karnes told HawgBeat. "I was super pumped about it. I went into the camp, I was hoping to get something but I wasn't sure. While I was there, we started off with drills inside and that went really well. I talked to (Fouch) when we first got there and it went well."
The offer is a preferred walk-on spot and not a scholarship offer yet, but Karnes isn't fazed by the extra work.
"You don't have to have the full-ride offer to start," Karnes said. "You can go there, become an All-American and everything like that."
Growing up in Greenwood, Karnes said he's been to plenty of Arkansas games, and has watched most of them.
"I've been to a pretty good amount of games, grew up as an Arkansas fan being in Greenwood," Karnes said. "It's pretty cool to watch the game and it's cool to be like, 'I'll be on that field' if I choose to commit there."
Last season for Greenwood, Karnes hauled in 72 passes for 990 yards and 13 touchdowns. Those are impressive numbers, but are actually less than what he had as a sophomore, when he brought in 96 passes for 1,297 yards and 16 touchdowns.
Right now, Karnes has two offers to play college football: Southeast Missouri State and Arkansas Baptist. He's hoping that number grows, though, as he attends camps at several different schools, something he hasn't been able to do in previous years because of baseball.
Karnes is not just a talented football player. He is also a standout on the baseball field, and just recently de-committed from Wichita State, where he was set to be a pitcher.
"I got up to about 90, 91-ish (on the fastball) and I kind of tweaked my arm a little bit," Karnes said. "So I didn't pitch at the end of the year and I kind of chose football because of that."
Up next, Karnes is set to camp at Arkansas State and Kansas State, and has a visit in the works to SEMO as well.
