planomateo
Member
Impressive article on the recruitment of Tenpenny (7200+ words). Its too big to fit in a single post, so I'll cut it down to three.
http://www.sbnation.com/2013/2/6/3956264/alabama-recruiting-altee-tenpenny-signing-day-profile
He didn’t know a summer circuit fitness test could rocket a previously obscure name onto the radar of every major college football program and secure the attention of top college football coaches. However, his high school coaches did, and in June 2010 they encouraged him to attend one. Tenpenny came back with a score of 90.91. “Everybody was looking at me like I did good,” he said. Indeed, at 15 years old, without a minute of varsity football under his belt, the native Arkansan’s score identified him as an elite athlete, the kind that made college football coaches and fans drool.
His performance his sophomore season underscored those numbers as he rushed for 1,232 yards and 15 touchdowns but his combine stats the following season really sent his stock soaring. At a Nike-sponsored combine in Fort Worth, Texas, Tenpenny went through a series of football-specific drills – the 40-yard dash, shuttle, vertical jump, and power ball toss – and absolutely killed it, accumulating a SPARQ score, that measures speed, power, agility, reaction and quickness, of 129.6. In July of 2011 he competed in the SPARQ ratings national championship. Out of a field of 150, Tenpenny finished second.
National prep football recruiting sites soon ranked him near the top of his class. Mississippi had already offered a scholarship and now so did Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn and other schools. What began as a SPARQ in the summer of 2010, four digits hinting at vast potential, developed into a full-fledged brushfire on the recruiting landscape.
And as Tenpenny entered his senior season, nowhere have the fires burned brighter than between supporters of the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Alabama Crimson Tide. Tenpenny committed to Alabama in January 2012, but until a recruit signs a national letter of intent on the first Wednesday of February, that means nothing. Until then, recruits are free to change their minds and flip, and schools can do their best to make that happen.
THE DECISION CAME DOWN TO WHETHER OR NOT HE WOULD STICK WITH ALABAMA OR SUCCUMB TO PRESSURE AND STAY IN ARKANSAS
In the case of Altee Tenpenny, the decision came down to whether or not he would stick with Alabama or succumb to pressure and stay in Arkansas. If he sticks with his word and selects Alabama on Feb. 6, then a player Rivals.com has ranked as the 36th-best player in the class of 2013 becomes yet one more drop in a tide of four- and five-star players that have come to Alabama and over the last four years swept aside almost every foe. Given the perennial national contender’s depth at running back, there’s no guarantee Tenpenny will even appear on the field in 2013, or, if he does, that he’ll receive more than a handful of touches. However, he will be all but assured of winning at least one SEC title, and, if he stays in school the entire time, perhaps a national championship as well.
But if Tenpenny shocks the nation and chooses the Hogs, he immediately becomes a cornerstone in Arkansas coach Bret Bielema’s rebuilding effort. Ninety-eight percent of his home state would hail him as a savior, a once-in-a-decade type of player on par with former Razorback record-setting running backs Jerry Eckwood, Madre Hill and Darren McFadden. Given Arkansas’ lack of depth, he’s a near lock for earning heavy minutes as a freshman, but his chances at winning an SEC or national championship in the coming years would plummet, and under an increased workload as a featured back, perhaps his stock as a pro prospect.
This, or something like this, is how the majority of fans see it. But what about Tenpenny himself? This is the question that has consumed Tenpenny and his inner circle of family and friends as the young man from North Little Rock makes what might be the most important decision of his life while facing the scrutiny of the fans and media in both states.
And he is only 18 years old.
* * *
North Little Rock High School, with approximately 2,800 students, is located near the geographic center of Arkansas. Tenpenny and his classmates are representative of modern North Little Rock and the surrounding area. To the southwest are some of the county’s most desperately poor neighborhoods. To the northeast are solidly middle class neighborhoods that border the interstate and sit amid a concrete sprawloplex of big-box stores and chain restaurants, where Altee Tenpenny, his mother, stepfather and little brother live. Tenpenny’s stepfather Lee Shephard is constantly on the road, inspecting buildings for a commercial waterproofing and roofing contractor. Tenpenny’s older sister attends the University of Central Arkansas in nearby Conway and his two older brothers serve in the Army.
I GOT A FOOTBALL LIFE, A REGULAR LIFE AND WORK LIFE
Before Tenpenny, perhaps the most famous running back from what is now called North Little Rock High was Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. As teenagers, both players, Tenpenny and Jones, developed renowned work ethics, and not just because of their time spent on the football field. Jones put in countless hours outside of school working at his father’s grocery store and in the last few months, Tenpenny, despite the maelstrom swirling around him and his decision, works the grill at David’s Burgers for five and a half hours each school night. “I want to stay level-headed,” he said of his job, which offers a bit of a reprieve from the pressure. “I try to keep the football talk to a minimum. I got a football life, a regular life and work life.”
As a sophomore, despite his stellar performance, his team finished 5-6, its season ending on a rain-soaked field in northwest Arkansas as Fayetteville beat North Little Rock 23-7 in the opening round of the 7A state playoffs. Still, Tenpenny’s performance, coupled with his combine scores, made him the state’s hottest prospect heading into his junior year. “I’m looking at all schools, trying to see what they’re about, see how they’re gonna be winning,” he said on the television show Arkansas Sports Nation on July 26, 2011. “When I graduate, I want to be able to come in as a true freshman and get playing time, just like Michael Dyer,” he said, referring to the former Auburn running back and Little Rock native. In August, however, he fractured his right ankle during an intrasquad scrimmage.
The injury, which required surgery, was slow to heal and caused Tenpenny to sit out the entire season. Tenpenny became the state’s most interviewed injured athlete as he watched from the sidelines as his Charging Wildcats plunged deep into the postseason, making it all the way to the semifinals before falling 31-7 to Bentonville, a northwest Arkansas powerhouse.
Still, by the following winter, Tenpenny had received even more scholarship offers as schools like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State expressed interest. Then in January 2012, he took an unofficial visit to Alabama’s Tuscaloosa campus. The night before the trip, he sat and wrote down a list of pros and cons that a decision to attend Alabama would entail. The litany of national titles, future NFL first-round draft picks and Heisman Trophy contenders were enticing, but Tenpenny also liked the coaches. “Everything felt right. Everything felt comfortable, he said. “The environment, the staff, they liked to run the ball. Everything just meshed up.”
ON JAN. 28, HE ANNOUNCED HIS COMMITMENT TO THE CRIMSON TIDE
By the time he entered his car for the return trip, the pros definitely outweighed the cons. On Jan. 28, he announced his commitment to the Crimson Tide.
In early July, Tenpenny was one of two running backs committed to Alabama, yet on July 9, he told 247 Sports, an online recruiting news outlet, that although he was “99 percent solid” on the commitment to Alabama, he still planned on visiting other schools. “The 1 percent is the recruiting process, since you know anything can happen,” he said. All over Arkansas, Hog fans began to dream about that “anything.”
Then, over the next few months, “anything” started happening. Alabama continued to stockpile blue-chip running backs, more than most programs get over the course of a decade. All of a sudden, Tenpenny was only one of many.
* * *
The potent running game that has led Alabama to three of the last four national championships operates on a simple premise: NFL running backs tend to have short shelf lives. According to an NFL Players Association study of NFL rosters from 1987-1996, the average NFL career is 3.3 years. Running backs, at only 2.57 years, have the shortest careers of all.
College’s best running backs aren’t compensated millions of dollars for each crushing body blow they absorb. Mileage saved on the body in college can result in a potentially longer pro career and more money down the line, and Alabama coaches use the argument to convince superstar prep tailbacks that sitting on the pine for a season or two is actually in their best interest.
Since 2009, American football fans have watched the Tide’s assembly line of top running backs take carries from each other and rip the heart out of opposing defenses. Each headliner – first Mark Ingram, then Trent Richardson, then Eddie Lacy and now T.J. Yeldon – first complements and then supplants his predecessor as the Tide’s marquee running back. All the while, four and five-star recruits who would take top billing for other SEC teams, such as Roy Upchurch, Jalston Fowler and Kenyan Drake, make punishing cameo appearances.
Only twice during the Tide’s most recent run of dominance has one of its players averaged more than 15 rush attempts a game for one season (Ingram in 2009 and Richardson in 2011). Most ‘Bama backs qualify as a "low-mileage back,” a term Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples noted has crept into NFL draftniks' vocabulary. “It's not an insult,” wrote Staples. “It means a back has taken fewer hits at lower levels and therefore might have a longer career in the NFL.”
ALABAMA’S PROJECTED BACKFIELD HAS GOTTEN CONSIDERABLY MORE CROWDED SINCE HE FIRST COMMITTED.
As a result, Tenpenny has come to accept the fact that Alabama’s projected backfield has gotten considerably more crowded since he first committed. In February, one of Georgia’s top prep running backs, Tyren Jones, committed to Alabama. In September, Florida’s top running back, 6’3, 240-pound Derrick Henry, did too. About the same time, five-star junior tailback and Alabama native Bo Scarbrough followed suit. Each player will not only battle each other for minutes, but they must also fight for playing time with veteran T.J. Yeldon, whose debut season was even more impressive than that of recent All-Americans Ingram or Richardson.
Tenpenny, however, claims to welcome the challenge. He studies video of Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Bo Jackson and Earl Campbell to figure not only what made them successful, but to discern how he can one day outdo them. His Nike T-shirts announce “DAMN I’M GOOD” without a whiff of irony. Tenpenny wouldn’t be where he is today without this kind of confidence. Arkansas fans grudgingly understand the attraction of a winning program like Alabama’s.
Still, they hoped the allure of early playing time and the resulting glory that comes from being an Arkansas native might help flip Tenpenny. “I guess winning talks,” wrote one commenter on the Arkansas sports message board Hogville.net. “But dang, I think I’d get tired of sharing carries with 18 people. Be a small piece, or THE piece at home.” As another fan wrote on Wholehogsports, “We don’t care if you’re better than Ingram, or Richardson, or any other ‘Bama running back. We want to see if you’re better than Cobb, or Hill, or Jones, or McFadden. Do it at Fayetteville and give us all a thrill.”
Cedric Cobbs, Madre Hill, Felix Jones and Darren McFadden are names Tenpenny has heard all his life. Each of these running backs set records and helped lead the Razorbacks to SEC West titles. Tenpenny couldn’t escape their legacies if he tried. Two of his North Little Rock teammates – Juan Day and Kavin Alexander – are cousins of Cobbs and McFadden. Another teammate, Aaron Adams, is the little brother of former Razorback wide receiver Joe Adams. Tenpenny said he hasn’t discussed Razorback connections with these teammates, though.
Indeed, through last fall, he preferred not to talk much recruiting at all. He focused on making the most of his last chance to bring home North Little Rock’s first state title since 1972.
* * *
The Charging Wildcats tore through the 2012 regular season with an undefeated in-state record as Tenpenny and running back Juan Day (an Arkansas commit) formed a punishing one-two punch. The only blemish came in a 30-14 loss to Texas’ perennial power Longview High. North Little Rock secured home field advantage for the state playoffs and took advantage in the quarterfinals with a 28-0 romp of suburban Cabot High. The game’s highlight came in the third quarter, when Tenpenny chose to hurdle a 5’8 defender. By the end of the game Tenpenny had tallied 1,328 yards and 19 touchdowns on 181 rushing attempts for the season. All that stood between North Little Rock and the state championship game in Little Rock was Fayetteville High.
The defending state champions were one of the few teams in Arkansas with the same amount of talent as North Little Rock. Three Razorbacks commits headlined the Bulldogs – safety Alex Brignoni, linebacker Brooks Ellis and quarterback Austin Allen, whose brother, Brandon, is currently an Arkansas quarterback and whose father, Bobby, was an assistant and is now Arkansas’ high school relations director.
In the semifinal against North Little Rock, these three stars helped Fayetteville build a 24-6 lead by the first minutes of the fourth quarter. North Little Rock staged a furious comeback, but ultimately fell short, losing 30-28. Tenpenny finished with 48 yards on 20 carries, but that statistically lackluster performance was deceptive. His ability to run after catching the football, gaining 56 yards and scoring two touchdowns on only three receptions, nearly led North Little Rock to victory and caused Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton to tell the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “When he caught that ball the other night on a screen pass and he was sprinting down the sideline, I swore I saw a cape coming from the back. He looked like Superman. He was flying.”
Meanwhile, in late November, the Arkansas Razorbacks ended their season under interim head coach John L. Smith a desultory 4-8, far below the expectation of fans. Over the next couple weeks speculation over the hiring of new head coach reached a fever pitch.
Even Tenpenny was curious. Although on Sunday, Dec. 2, he said he was still solidly committed to Alabama, Arkansas still had a chance. “First I just got to see who all is on the staff,” he said. “I’ll just ask them how they’re going to get me ready and will they give me a chance.”
Yet that was only one factor in his decision. The opinion of his mother, Shenitta Shephard, carried weight and Tenpenny has always indicated he will choose a college where his parents feel comfortable. His mother does not suffer fools. She is looking for a head coach who will treat Altee “not like a product, but as a person,” she said. The coach, she said, needs to “meet the demands of the total person, not just football. Football is his extra,” and “If you come to me with football first, that kind of deters me because that’s not what I’m sending him there for. That’s what got him there, but my thing is his education. I want him to come out with a degree because there needs to be a Plan B.”
Tenpenny’s Plan B is television. He plans to major in sports broadcasting, just like his older sister, and dreams of appearing on ESPN or The NFL Network. Until then, “I want to continue to play football as long as the Lord blesses me to” he said.
To do that, Tenpenny wants to play for a coach emphasizing the run game. “I’m not going to go to a passing school,” he said. “So [the system] would matter. If [Arkansas’ new coach] tried to come in and run like an air raid or the spread system, I want to say it would take some of interest off, but we’ll just have to see what he’ll run.”
While Alabama wide receivers coach Mike Groh recruited Tenpenny for the Tide, Arkansas running backs coach Tim Horton served as the Razorback’s lead recruiter. Horton has a proven record of developing talent – from 2007 through 2010, he coached four 1,000-yard rushers – and Tenpenny has already directly benefitted from Horton’s coaching through the instruction he received at summer camps he attended at the University of Arkansas. The running back thinks highly of Horton, something that worried some Alabamans.
Moreover, North Little Rock coach Brad Bolding grew up with Horton and considers him a friend (indeed, Bolding’s father coached Horton in high school and Horton’s father coached Bolding at the University of Central Arkansas). Brad Bolding said Tim Horton should receive much of the credit for keeping Tenpenny’s interest in the Razorbacks during the tumultuous 2012 season and that without Horton Tenpenny would not have considered going to Arkansas last fall.
Horton is adept at flipping elite recruits. In 2008, he flipped receiver Joe Adams from USC, and in 2011, he flipped running back Jonathan Williams (projected as Arkansas’ 2013 starter) from Missouri.
All the same, Tenpenny realized that Arkansas’ new head coach will want to clean house, meaning assistants like Horton will need to look for new jobs. “The weirdest thing is thinking that Coach Horton could be gone,” Tenpenny said. “He’s a great guy, a great coach. To get rid of him … would be dumb.”
* * *
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http://www.sbnation.com/2013/2/6/3956264/alabama-recruiting-altee-tenpenny-signing-day-profile
He didn’t know a summer circuit fitness test could rocket a previously obscure name onto the radar of every major college football program and secure the attention of top college football coaches. However, his high school coaches did, and in June 2010 they encouraged him to attend one. Tenpenny came back with a score of 90.91. “Everybody was looking at me like I did good,” he said. Indeed, at 15 years old, without a minute of varsity football under his belt, the native Arkansan’s score identified him as an elite athlete, the kind that made college football coaches and fans drool.
His performance his sophomore season underscored those numbers as he rushed for 1,232 yards and 15 touchdowns but his combine stats the following season really sent his stock soaring. At a Nike-sponsored combine in Fort Worth, Texas, Tenpenny went through a series of football-specific drills – the 40-yard dash, shuttle, vertical jump, and power ball toss – and absolutely killed it, accumulating a SPARQ score, that measures speed, power, agility, reaction and quickness, of 129.6. In July of 2011 he competed in the SPARQ ratings national championship. Out of a field of 150, Tenpenny finished second.
National prep football recruiting sites soon ranked him near the top of his class. Mississippi had already offered a scholarship and now so did Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn and other schools. What began as a SPARQ in the summer of 2010, four digits hinting at vast potential, developed into a full-fledged brushfire on the recruiting landscape.
And as Tenpenny entered his senior season, nowhere have the fires burned brighter than between supporters of the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Alabama Crimson Tide. Tenpenny committed to Alabama in January 2012, but until a recruit signs a national letter of intent on the first Wednesday of February, that means nothing. Until then, recruits are free to change their minds and flip, and schools can do their best to make that happen.
THE DECISION CAME DOWN TO WHETHER OR NOT HE WOULD STICK WITH ALABAMA OR SUCCUMB TO PRESSURE AND STAY IN ARKANSAS
In the case of Altee Tenpenny, the decision came down to whether or not he would stick with Alabama or succumb to pressure and stay in Arkansas. If he sticks with his word and selects Alabama on Feb. 6, then a player Rivals.com has ranked as the 36th-best player in the class of 2013 becomes yet one more drop in a tide of four- and five-star players that have come to Alabama and over the last four years swept aside almost every foe. Given the perennial national contender’s depth at running back, there’s no guarantee Tenpenny will even appear on the field in 2013, or, if he does, that he’ll receive more than a handful of touches. However, he will be all but assured of winning at least one SEC title, and, if he stays in school the entire time, perhaps a national championship as well.
But if Tenpenny shocks the nation and chooses the Hogs, he immediately becomes a cornerstone in Arkansas coach Bret Bielema’s rebuilding effort. Ninety-eight percent of his home state would hail him as a savior, a once-in-a-decade type of player on par with former Razorback record-setting running backs Jerry Eckwood, Madre Hill and Darren McFadden. Given Arkansas’ lack of depth, he’s a near lock for earning heavy minutes as a freshman, but his chances at winning an SEC or national championship in the coming years would plummet, and under an increased workload as a featured back, perhaps his stock as a pro prospect.
This, or something like this, is how the majority of fans see it. But what about Tenpenny himself? This is the question that has consumed Tenpenny and his inner circle of family and friends as the young man from North Little Rock makes what might be the most important decision of his life while facing the scrutiny of the fans and media in both states.
And he is only 18 years old.
* * *
North Little Rock High School, with approximately 2,800 students, is located near the geographic center of Arkansas. Tenpenny and his classmates are representative of modern North Little Rock and the surrounding area. To the southwest are some of the county’s most desperately poor neighborhoods. To the northeast are solidly middle class neighborhoods that border the interstate and sit amid a concrete sprawloplex of big-box stores and chain restaurants, where Altee Tenpenny, his mother, stepfather and little brother live. Tenpenny’s stepfather Lee Shephard is constantly on the road, inspecting buildings for a commercial waterproofing and roofing contractor. Tenpenny’s older sister attends the University of Central Arkansas in nearby Conway and his two older brothers serve in the Army.
I GOT A FOOTBALL LIFE, A REGULAR LIFE AND WORK LIFE
Before Tenpenny, perhaps the most famous running back from what is now called North Little Rock High was Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. As teenagers, both players, Tenpenny and Jones, developed renowned work ethics, and not just because of their time spent on the football field. Jones put in countless hours outside of school working at his father’s grocery store and in the last few months, Tenpenny, despite the maelstrom swirling around him and his decision, works the grill at David’s Burgers for five and a half hours each school night. “I want to stay level-headed,” he said of his job, which offers a bit of a reprieve from the pressure. “I try to keep the football talk to a minimum. I got a football life, a regular life and work life.”
As a sophomore, despite his stellar performance, his team finished 5-6, its season ending on a rain-soaked field in northwest Arkansas as Fayetteville beat North Little Rock 23-7 in the opening round of the 7A state playoffs. Still, Tenpenny’s performance, coupled with his combine scores, made him the state’s hottest prospect heading into his junior year. “I’m looking at all schools, trying to see what they’re about, see how they’re gonna be winning,” he said on the television show Arkansas Sports Nation on July 26, 2011. “When I graduate, I want to be able to come in as a true freshman and get playing time, just like Michael Dyer,” he said, referring to the former Auburn running back and Little Rock native. In August, however, he fractured his right ankle during an intrasquad scrimmage.
The injury, which required surgery, was slow to heal and caused Tenpenny to sit out the entire season. Tenpenny became the state’s most interviewed injured athlete as he watched from the sidelines as his Charging Wildcats plunged deep into the postseason, making it all the way to the semifinals before falling 31-7 to Bentonville, a northwest Arkansas powerhouse.
Still, by the following winter, Tenpenny had received even more scholarship offers as schools like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State expressed interest. Then in January 2012, he took an unofficial visit to Alabama’s Tuscaloosa campus. The night before the trip, he sat and wrote down a list of pros and cons that a decision to attend Alabama would entail. The litany of national titles, future NFL first-round draft picks and Heisman Trophy contenders were enticing, but Tenpenny also liked the coaches. “Everything felt right. Everything felt comfortable, he said. “The environment, the staff, they liked to run the ball. Everything just meshed up.”
ON JAN. 28, HE ANNOUNCED HIS COMMITMENT TO THE CRIMSON TIDE
By the time he entered his car for the return trip, the pros definitely outweighed the cons. On Jan. 28, he announced his commitment to the Crimson Tide.
In early July, Tenpenny was one of two running backs committed to Alabama, yet on July 9, he told 247 Sports, an online recruiting news outlet, that although he was “99 percent solid” on the commitment to Alabama, he still planned on visiting other schools. “The 1 percent is the recruiting process, since you know anything can happen,” he said. All over Arkansas, Hog fans began to dream about that “anything.”
Then, over the next few months, “anything” started happening. Alabama continued to stockpile blue-chip running backs, more than most programs get over the course of a decade. All of a sudden, Tenpenny was only one of many.
* * *
The potent running game that has led Alabama to three of the last four national championships operates on a simple premise: NFL running backs tend to have short shelf lives. According to an NFL Players Association study of NFL rosters from 1987-1996, the average NFL career is 3.3 years. Running backs, at only 2.57 years, have the shortest careers of all.
College’s best running backs aren’t compensated millions of dollars for each crushing body blow they absorb. Mileage saved on the body in college can result in a potentially longer pro career and more money down the line, and Alabama coaches use the argument to convince superstar prep tailbacks that sitting on the pine for a season or two is actually in their best interest.
Since 2009, American football fans have watched the Tide’s assembly line of top running backs take carries from each other and rip the heart out of opposing defenses. Each headliner – first Mark Ingram, then Trent Richardson, then Eddie Lacy and now T.J. Yeldon – first complements and then supplants his predecessor as the Tide’s marquee running back. All the while, four and five-star recruits who would take top billing for other SEC teams, such as Roy Upchurch, Jalston Fowler and Kenyan Drake, make punishing cameo appearances.
Only twice during the Tide’s most recent run of dominance has one of its players averaged more than 15 rush attempts a game for one season (Ingram in 2009 and Richardson in 2011). Most ‘Bama backs qualify as a "low-mileage back,” a term Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples noted has crept into NFL draftniks' vocabulary. “It's not an insult,” wrote Staples. “It means a back has taken fewer hits at lower levels and therefore might have a longer career in the NFL.”
ALABAMA’S PROJECTED BACKFIELD HAS GOTTEN CONSIDERABLY MORE CROWDED SINCE HE FIRST COMMITTED.
As a result, Tenpenny has come to accept the fact that Alabama’s projected backfield has gotten considerably more crowded since he first committed. In February, one of Georgia’s top prep running backs, Tyren Jones, committed to Alabama. In September, Florida’s top running back, 6’3, 240-pound Derrick Henry, did too. About the same time, five-star junior tailback and Alabama native Bo Scarbrough followed suit. Each player will not only battle each other for minutes, but they must also fight for playing time with veteran T.J. Yeldon, whose debut season was even more impressive than that of recent All-Americans Ingram or Richardson.
Tenpenny, however, claims to welcome the challenge. He studies video of Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Bo Jackson and Earl Campbell to figure not only what made them successful, but to discern how he can one day outdo them. His Nike T-shirts announce “DAMN I’M GOOD” without a whiff of irony. Tenpenny wouldn’t be where he is today without this kind of confidence. Arkansas fans grudgingly understand the attraction of a winning program like Alabama’s.
Still, they hoped the allure of early playing time and the resulting glory that comes from being an Arkansas native might help flip Tenpenny. “I guess winning talks,” wrote one commenter on the Arkansas sports message board Hogville.net. “But dang, I think I’d get tired of sharing carries with 18 people. Be a small piece, or THE piece at home.” As another fan wrote on Wholehogsports, “We don’t care if you’re better than Ingram, or Richardson, or any other ‘Bama running back. We want to see if you’re better than Cobb
Cedric Cobbs, Madre Hill, Felix Jones and Darren McFadden are names Tenpenny has heard all his life. Each of these running backs set records and helped lead the Razorbacks to SEC West titles. Tenpenny couldn’t escape their legacies if he tried. Two of his North Little Rock teammates – Juan Day and Kavin Alexander – are cousins of Cobbs and McFadden. Another teammate, Aaron Adams, is the little brother of former Razorback wide receiver Joe Adams. Tenpenny said he hasn’t discussed Razorback connections with these teammates, though.
Indeed, through last fall, he preferred not to talk much recruiting at all. He focused on making the most of his last chance to bring home North Little Rock’s first state title since 1972.
* * *
The Charging Wildcats tore through the 2012 regular season with an undefeated in-state record as Tenpenny and running back Juan Day (an Arkansas commit) formed a punishing one-two punch. The only blemish came in a 30-14 loss to Texas’ perennial power Longview High. North Little Rock secured home field advantage for the state playoffs and took advantage in the quarterfinals with a 28-0 romp of suburban Cabot High. The game’s highlight came in the third quarter, when Tenpenny chose to hurdle a 5’8 defender. By the end of the game Tenpenny had tallied 1,328 yards and 19 touchdowns on 181 rushing attempts for the season. All that stood between North Little Rock and the state championship game in Little Rock was Fayetteville High.
The defending state champions were one of the few teams in Arkansas with the same amount of talent as North Little Rock. Three Razorbacks commits headlined the Bulldogs – safety Alex Brignoni, linebacker Brooks Ellis and quarterback Austin Allen, whose brother, Brandon, is currently an Arkansas quarterback and whose father, Bobby, was an assistant and is now Arkansas’ high school relations director.
In the semifinal against North Little Rock, these three stars helped Fayetteville build a 24-6 lead by the first minutes of the fourth quarter. North Little Rock staged a furious comeback, but ultimately fell short, losing 30-28. Tenpenny finished with 48 yards on 20 carries, but that statistically lackluster performance was deceptive. His ability to run after catching the football, gaining 56 yards and scoring two touchdowns on only three receptions, nearly led North Little Rock to victory and caused Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton to tell the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “When he caught that ball the other night on a screen pass and he was sprinting down the sideline, I swore I saw a cape coming from the back. He looked like Superman. He was flying.”
Meanwhile, in late November, the Arkansas Razorbacks ended their season under interim head coach John L. Smith a desultory 4-8, far below the expectation of fans. Over the next couple weeks speculation over the hiring of new head coach reached a fever pitch.
Even Tenpenny was curious. Although on Sunday, Dec. 2, he said he was still solidly committed to Alabama, Arkansas still had a chance. “First I just got to see who all is on the staff,” he said. “I’ll just ask them how they’re going to get me ready and will they give me a chance.”
Yet that was only one factor in his decision. The opinion of his mother, Shenitta Shephard, carried weight and Tenpenny has always indicated he will choose a college where his parents feel comfortable. His mother does not suffer fools. She is looking for a head coach who will treat Altee “not like a product, but as a person,” she said. The coach, she said, needs to “meet the demands of the total person, not just football. Football is his extra,” and “If you come to me with football first, that kind of deters me because that’s not what I’m sending him there for. That’s what got him there, but my thing is his education. I want him to come out with a degree because there needs to be a Plan B.”
Tenpenny’s Plan B is television. He plans to major in sports broadcasting, just like his older sister, and dreams of appearing on ESPN or The NFL Network. Until then, “I want to continue to play football as long as the Lord blesses me to” he said.
To do that, Tenpenny wants to play for a coach emphasizing the run game. “I’m not going to go to a passing school,” he said. “So [the system] would matter. If [Arkansas’ new coach] tried to come in and run like an air raid or the spread system, I want to say it would take some of interest off, but we’ll just have to see what he’ll run.”
While Alabama wide receivers coach Mike Groh recruited Tenpenny for the Tide, Arkansas running backs coach Tim Horton served as the Razorback’s lead recruiter. Horton has a proven record of developing talent – from 2007 through 2010, he coached four 1,000-yard rushers – and Tenpenny has already directly benefitted from Horton’s coaching through the instruction he received at summer camps he attended at the University of Arkansas. The running back thinks highly of Horton, something that worried some Alabamans.
Moreover, North Little Rock coach Brad Bolding grew up with Horton and considers him a friend (indeed, Bolding’s father coached Horton in high school and Horton’s father coached Bolding at the University of Central Arkansas). Brad Bolding said Tim Horton should receive much of the credit for keeping Tenpenny’s interest in the Razorbacks during the tumultuous 2012 season and that without Horton Tenpenny would not have considered going to Arkansas last fall.
Horton is adept at flipping elite recruits. In 2008, he flipped receiver Joe Adams from USC, and in 2011, he flipped running back Jonathan Williams (projected as Arkansas’ 2013 starter) from Missouri.
All the same, Tenpenny realized that Arkansas’ new head coach will want to clean house, meaning assistants like Horton will need to look for new jobs. “The weirdest thing is thinking that Coach Horton could be gone,” Tenpenny said. “He’s a great guy, a great coach. To get rid of him … would be dumb.”
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