Chad Morris’ hire at Arkansas — which will reportedly be announced Wednesday, per ESPN — signals a significant shift for the Razorbacks.

Gone is the colorful, smash-mouth personality that was Bret Bielema. In his place is a cliché-loving, spread-employing Texan that is Chad Morris. SMU’s head coach the last three years, Morris, much like Option 1 Gus Malzahn, rose from state-title-winning high school coach to star offensive coordinator. Then, given the chance at a Group of Five school, both cultivated winning programs.

But there are plenty of differences between the two. Notably, Morris is from Texas.

Why is that important, you might ask? Morris has a direct pipeline into the rich recruiting grounds of the Lone Star State. Texas is among the largest producers of Division 1 talent annually, and the Razorbacks are now in a position to mine it.

Under Bielema, perhaps due to comments he made early in his tenure, Arkansas had a difficult time establishing a recruiting foothold in neighboring Texas. Per an excellent statistical breakdown from Hawgs247's Andrew Hutchinson, Bielema signed just 15 Texans in five years. That’s a lot fewer than Bobby Petrino (25) inked in five years and considerably less than Houston Nutt (36) signed in his first five classes in Fayetteville.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bielema’s winning percentage (46%) lagged well behind Nutt (61%) and Petrino (67%).

There are other factors that led to Bielema’s poor showing. But the talent gap in the SEC West was significant during his tenure. The Razorbacks finished sixth (2013), sixth (2014), seventh (2015), sixth (2016) and sixth (2017) among the SEC West’s seven teams per the 247Sports Composite recruiting rankings during Bielema's five-year run.

It would be unreasonable to expect Arkansas to consistently recruit on Alabama’s level, but the Razorbacks weren’t even close.

Morris, with a dip into Texas, can help close the gap a bit.

Arkansas will always recruit well in its home state. Bielema, Petrino and Nutt signed virtually the same percentage of in-state players with Power Five offers during their tenures. That 60 percent number isn’t likely to change with Morris coming on board. Where Morris can help is in allowing the Razorbacks to maintain quality from 1-25 in their recruiting classes. The Natural State, while football crazed, simply doesn’t produce the same number of FBS-level players as other states in the SEC.

For example, the state of Arkansas features 24 players rated as a three-star or better in the 2018 class. Alabama, not even the most prospect-dense state, has 71 in the 247Sports Composite. But Texas, as it does yearly, dwarfs both states with 318 such prospects.

As a bordering state to Texas, the Razorbacks should be tapping into that Texas talent pool heavily.

Morris will help solve that.

A state-championship winning high school coach at Austin Lake Travis in Texas, Morris has connections in the Lone State. He’s also a proven recruiter. Morris served as Deshaun Watson’s lead recruiter at Clemson, and he showed at SMU he can be both creative and effective recruiting against Power Five programs. In Morris’ two full cycles as the Mustangs' head coach, they finished among the top 3 in their division in the final recruiting rankings.

More importantly, 65 of the 68 players Morris inked from 2015-17 were from the Lone Star State; the only exceptions being a pair of JUCO prospects and an Australian punter.

Arkansas' upcoming philosophical shift in terms of offense will help Morris’ efforts to recruit in Texas. The Lone Star State is mostly home to high-flying spread attacks, a system in Texas that Morris had a part in popularizing. And while Arkansas will never truly compete with Texas and Texas A&M for top prospects in their home state, there are plenty of other talented players to go around. East Texas, particularly, is a gold mine of underrated small-town athletes that Arkansas can target close to home.

Texas can’t be the only supplementary place Arkansas focuses on in recruiting. But it can be a critical piece of the team’s efforts.

Bielema too often left the Lone Star State untapped during his tenure.

That won’t be a problem under Morris, and expect the shift to pay dividends for the Razorbacks on the trail immediately.