The worst part of Arkansas’ 45-17 loss to Georgia on Saturday was how predictable it was. The Razorbacks played hard but were overmatched from the start, falling behind 38-3 before a couple of late garbage-time touchdowns made the final score slightly more respectable.
Fans knew exactly what was coming by not showing up. The crowd at kickoff was sparse, and the fans that showed up mostly left in the third quarter. With the game behind broadcast nationally on ABC, the act of apathetic protest was noticed by national media members.
With respect to Scott Van Pelt, fan anger is not primarily targeted at Ryan Silverfield. As we discussed earlier in the week, Silverfield walked into a football program that lost its identity a long time ago. It’s not a good situation, and it would not be easy for any coach to win under these circumstances.
Instead, the anger is targeted at athletic director Hunter Yurachek, who probably isn’t long for this job. On Friday, the Board of Trustees released a statement promising “a review of the competitiveness of Razorback athletics, including steps to improve the resources available to the football program.” That suggests that fans are being heard, if nothing else.
It does not, however, mean much for the 2026 football team. This team is not good and is not going to be good at any point this season. The team showed good fight against Georgia on both sides of the ball, and the passing game looked much better, but there’s a lot broken and the Bulldogs were way too good.
There are two separate issues here. Fixing things at the top may be a good first start, but there’s no excuse for this poor of an on-field product, especially when it comes to offense. Consider:
- Mississippi State, a resource-poor program with far less tradition than Arkansas, still rallied donor support after a 2-10 first season for Jeff Lebby, and now has a solid team with an elite offense
- South Carolina struggled on offense last season but hired former Arkansas OC Kendal Briles and now leads the SEC in rushing after three weeks
- Kentucky, which ranked 15th (just ahead of Arkansas) in that NIL list, took their first-year coach to College Station and dominated the Aggies
- Arkansas, meanwhile, has less than 250 rushing yards for the season and has yet to score a touchdown against a starting FBS defense this year
The numbers bear out all the problems with the Razorback offense.
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Sadly, the 45-17 final score was closer than how the game played out. Georgia posted an overwhelming +24.8 EPA on standard downs, so the Bulldogs really had their way. Georgia had a 59% success rate (including 23 successful rushes) and a 19% explosive play rate (including nine on the ground).
Want the good news? After Arkansas’ offense suffered way too many negative plays in the opener against North Alabama, this was the second straight game against a solid defense that they managed to keep their havoc rate low. Just five plays were recorded as havoc plays (sacks, stuffed runs, turnovers).
The flip side of very few havoc plays is very few explosive plays. The Hogs failed to generate a single rush of 10+ yards. After three weeks, they rank 133rd out of 137 FBS teams in explosive rush rate.
Our look at recent Razorback football history highlighted the need for Arkansas to win with offense, and this offense isn’t built to win games. You can see it in the rushing numbers. That’s so far off from Arkansas’ identity that it is unacceptable. Even bad offenses like Chad Morris’s 2018 team could run the football with Rakeem Boyd. Houston Nutt’s worst offense – in 2005 – had Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, and Peyton Hillis, though the former two were true freshmen.
The issue is more than just talent and execution. I’m not really a fan of the zone-scheme run game at a school like Arkansas, because I don’t think it puts enough pressure on the defense. Nutt, Bobby Petrino, and Dan Enos 1.0 all preferred the power run game, and every offensive coordinator at Arkansas since 1998 that runs power has found at least some success.
Now, the zone scheme can work if you pair it with other elements that put pressure on the defense: Kendal Briles, following the lead of Lane Kiffin, used his father’s tempo and shot plays in the pass game to back the defense out of the box and set up the zone read game. That worked well and was fun to watch.
But Arkansas isn’t doing that now. This is, from a schematic standpoint, almost identical to what Dan Enos tried (and failed miserably) to run in 2023. It’s a low-explosive zone run scheme paired with a way-too-horizontal pass game. Even if the passing attack worked, it’s not really going to do much to pressure the defense into opening up the run. Everything has to work right to move the football: great blocking, and either good passing from the quarterback or a good read from the running back. And if everything works right? You get six yards. Now you have do it again just to get the first down.
There’s zero explosiveness, zero vertical pressure. KJ Jackson actually looked pretty decent, but an offense were you have to complete 35 passes a game just to have a chance is not going to work. Even if Jackson was one of the SEC’s most accurate quarterbacks, this offense would still have to labor just to get points.
It reminds me of a classic Far Side comic, where Arkansas is the mountain climber fighting hard to reach the summit:
There’s not much that can be done this year, but I think Silverfield has to rethink what he’s running this offseason. Even if guys were executing at a higher level, this has no chance to be a good offense in the SEC until the offensive line is elite, and the clock is likely going to run out on Silverfield before he’s able to accomplish that.
KJ Jackson is getting better. Some of these numbers aren’t great (6.1 yards per attempt, 9% explosive rate, +0.05 EPA per pass), but they aren’t awful, and 22 successful passes in 43 dropbacks is something to build on.
The improvement here is relative, as Arkansas isn’t going to beat any defense with a pulse without generating more explosive plays, but they can at least keep it interesting by controlling the clock and field position with a high-efficiency pass game.
Up next
Ryan Silverfield would be well-advised not to lose to Tulsa on Saturday. A loss sets up a potential 1-11 season and a final collapse of fan support. It won’t be easy.