In a matter of one play and just a few seconds, DeAndra Burns demonstrated why he's earned his three-star rating.
Burns wasn't even supposed to get the kickoff in a Sept. 23 game against Benton, but as soon as the El Dorado wideout caught the ball at his own 5-yard line, he burned the Panthers, using his combination of speed and vision to go 95 yards for the score.
"He's such a big-time playmaker," El Dorado Coach Steven Jones said that night. "He can change the game."
Arkansas State, en route to a third straight losing season, has Burns' commitment, and under Coach Butch Jones, the Red Wolves are looking anywhere to find more talent -- including internationally.
Upon taking over in December 2020, Jones prioritized a six-to-eight-hour radius around Jonesboro. That includes St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, Nashville, Dallas and Atlanta, all major markets with plenty of prospects in close proximity.
But above all, Jones wants to win recruiting battles in his own backyard, especially in his own state and especially with highly-touted prospects like Burns.
"Every school is covered in the state of Arkansas," Butch Jones said Monday after appearing at the Little Rock Touchdown Club.
Of the top 10 Arkansas-based recruits in last year's class, per the 247Sports composite, eight went to the University of Arkansas. Five more in the top 25 went to the University of Central Arkansas.
ASU plucked just one ranked prospect from the Natural State: Offensive lineman Chase Jessup of Lake Hamilton.
With more than a month until the early signing period begins, the Red Wolves already have commitments from Burns, Benton's Walker Davis and Stuttgart's Cedric Hawkins -- the state's seventh-, eighth- and ninth-ranked recruits.
And together, Burns and Hawkins will represent south Arkansas, arguably the state's least-recruited region.
It's not as if the southern part of the state can't keep up in terms of production.
El Dorado won the Class 6A state title last season. Forydce won back-to-back 2A crowns in 2019 and 2020. Warren and Junction City have each also earned multiple championships within the last decade.
But there remain challenges from the perspective of college programs recruiting those schools. Rarely does any team -- particularly smaller schools, which make up the heavy majority of south Arkansas -- have more than one or two Division I-caliber players at a given time, or at least within a single class.
Although the Red Wolves need only to drive two hours to get to Stuttgart, where Hawkins is from, a three-leg trip to Stuttgart, Fordyce and El Dorado takes 4 1/2 hours -- longer than driving to either St. Louis or Nashville where there are many more high-level recruits.
Some of that searching is minimized by summer programs, which Jones and his staff have advertised throughout their coverage of the state.
Coaches like Fordyce's Tim Rodgers, however, are less concerned about geography nowadays because of technology.
"With Hudl and MaxPreps and TikTok and all that stuff our kids do, it's going to be hard to miss a kid, especially if they're real good," Rodgers said.
Stuttgart Coach Josh Price was somewhat concerned that Hawkins might not catch the eye of college coaches in-person the way he did on film -- Hawkins measures in at 5-8 and 170 pounds -- but his dual skillset as both a runner and receiver, something that also applies to both Burns and current ASU running back Ja'Quez Cross (Fordyce), made him an early target for the Red Wolves.
What both Rodgers and Price see as a more significant issue is academics.
"The big thing here is they wait too late," Price explained. "You tell them until you're blue in the face, 'Guys, when you get in ninth grade, it starts counting towards graduation.' "
As much as Division I programs like ASU want top talent, it's an inefficient use of time to target players who ultimately won't be able to get eligible.
"We struggle with grades and ACT scores," Rodgers added. "I know it hinders our guys sometimes."
Steven Jones said those issues are less frequent at a slightly larger school in El Dorado, where ASU grabbed Terry Hampton in its 2018 recruiting class.
But other than Hampton, the only other prospect the Red Wolves have signed from south Arkansas in the last seven classes is Star City's Jax Gasaway -- who didn't play in 2018 or 2019 and then transferred.
One class doesn't necessarily establish a trend. Although Ashdown, Star City, El Dorado and Stuttgart are all represented in the 2023 class's top 10, Cross and Camden Fairview's Timothy Dawn were the region's only top-20 prospects in the last two recruiting classes.
Rodgers hopes that doesn't stop the Red Wolves from continuing to go down south.
"When those guys come in with those shirts ... and they're standing there in the weight room or out at practice and looking at stuff," he said. "Our kids notice that big-time."