LITTLE ROCK — The 13th in a series profiling new additions to the Arkansas football team.

A.J. Turner could barely believe his coach when he heard him late one Friday night last fall.

Turner, then a senior linebacker at East Poinsett County in Lepanto, had just helped his team to a 34-14 victory at McCrory when one of his coaches congratulated him on a great game.

Turner, who will be a freshman linebacker for Arkansas this fall, didn’t think much of it. Then his coach told him he had 30 tackles.

“I’m like, ‘I really had that many tackles?’ ” Turner said, recalling the moment.

Turner was told to watch the film when the team arrived back at school if he didn’t believe it. So, after a 90-minute ride following the victory, Turner settled into a chair for two hours and watched the whole game again.

“I saw some [tackles] that I missed,” Turner said. “But I had 30 of them.”

Turner, an All-Arkansas selection by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette who was rated a three-star prospect by Rivals.com, used performances like that one against McCrory to attract Razorbacks coaches to tiny Lepanto, population 2,133, a community located at the intersection of state highways 140 and 135 just southeast of Jonesboro.

Turner had 171 tackles as a junior while helping the Warriors to an 8-2 finish and had 205 last season when they went 11-1 and lost in the semifinals of the Class 2A state playoffs.

“He loves contact,” East Poinsett County Coach Brian Weathers said. “He loves the game. He’s physical, and he just loves it.”

Weathers, who coached Turner in junior high, said Turner has always had the same mentality but had to grow into his body.

“He was kind of like a yearling, is how we described him,” Weathers said.

Turner didn’t get a scholarship offer until Hugh Freeze, then at Arkansas State, gave him one after his junior season. Three weeks later, he was offered by the Razorbacks. He committed while he was in Fayetteville for Arkansas’ spring game in April 2011.

No other SEC school came forth with an offer after Turner committed to the Hogs, despite his impressive tackle totals. But that was before Gus Malzahn left Auburn in December to become coach at Arkansas State when Freeze left to be the head coach at Ole Miss.

Malzahn made Turner, whose high school is 40 miles from ASU’s campus, one of his top targets. But Turner said he never wavered in his commitment to the Razorbacks, despite swirling rumors through December and January that Malzahn had piqued his interest.

Weathers said he believes his player, too.

“Every time I heard a rumor, he would say, ‘There’s zero percent chance, Coach. I’m going to be a Razor-back,’ ” Weathers said.

Turner won’t deny he listened to Malzahn, but he said listening was all he did.

Turner remembers Malzahn and assistant coach David Gunn showing up at his high school during a basketball practice not long after Malzahn’s hiring. That conversation led to Malzahn visiting Turner’s home, but that’s where it ended.

“He just wanted me to give him a chance, and I gave him a chance. It just wasn’t right,” Turner said. “I’ve always wanted to be a Hog, and I always told myself if I ever got the opportunity to become a Hog, I would seize the opportunity.”

Turner signed with Arkansas in February, helped lead EPC to a Class 2A basketball state title in March and then was able to concentrate on growing into a college linebacker. He finished the basketball season at around 200 pounds and said he was at 218 the week before he reported to campus in June.

Turner said Arkansas coaches told him if he arrived on campus at about 215, he’d have a chance to play as a freshman.

“I’ll just let them take over,” he said of the coaches. “If they want me to be at 240 or 225, it doesn’t matter. I’m just wanting to let them put me in the best spot to play.”

Sports, Pages 17 on 07/21/2012