Former Texas A&M quarterback Nick Starkel is transferring to Arkansas, he announced Monday.
Starkel, who made five starts as a redshirt freshman in 2017 and served as the backup to Kellen Mond for the Aggies in 2018, will join the Razorbacks this summer as a graduate transfer and will be immediately eligible to play with two years remaining.
The story continues in Fayetteville, Arkansas... pic.twitter.com/bO7TOXHaW6
— Nicholas Starkel (@NickStarkel) March 5, 2019
By staying in the SEC West, Starkel will be guaranteed to see his former teammates each of the next two seasons: the Aggies and Razorbacks meet annually at AT&T Stadium in Arlington in the "Southwest Classic." Texas A&M has won every meeting between the two schools since joining the conference in 2012.
A four-star recruit out of Denton, Texas, in the 2016 class, Starkel started his first career game against UCLA in 2017 before suffering an injury. He returned to finish the season and started the final four games, including against Wake Forest in the 2017 Belk Bowl, in which he set a Texas A&M bowl game record with 499 passing yards.
Mond won a preseason quarterback competition between the two prior to the 2018 season under new coach Jimbo Fisher. Starkel appeared in four games, completing 15 of 22 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown in 2018.
Starkel is the second graduate-transfer quarterback to join the squad this offseason. Former SMU quarterback Ben Hicks, who played for Arkansas head coach Chad Morris for two seasons in Dallas, announced in January that he is heading to Fayetteville. Hicks set school records at SMU in passing yards, passing touchdowns, total offense, completions and touchdowns responsible for. Hicks has one year of eligibility remaining.
