Arkansas fans are about to spend a whole month asking the same questions again and again.
Ryan Silverfield’s first training camp opens Aug. 5 and there just aren’t many obvious answers sitting around waiting for anybody.
The Razorbacks open the season Sept. 5 against North Alabama then head straight into one of the toughest stretches the program has ever faced. Most folks consider it the toughest in the nation.
A trip to Utah comes in week two and the SEC schedule only gets meaner after that.
Silverfield took over a team that finished 2-10 last fall and landed dead last in the SEC. Six of those losses came by one score which tells you Arkansas wasn’t getting blown off the field so much as it couldn’t finish.
He arrived from Memphis where he went 50-25 over six seasons and never missed a bowl game.
That track record is why Arkansas hired him away in late November after Sam Pittman got fired following a 2-3 start The biggest problem now is nearly all of the guys that were with the Hogs last year are gone.
Athletic director Hunter Yurachek said the fit made sense right away.
“It became clear during our conversations that Coach Silverfield shares our vision of making the College Football Playoffs and competing for a national championship,” Yurachek said.
That’s a big goal for a team that just finished last in its own league. Getting there starts with something Silverfield keeps calling the controllables.
Just don’t expect it anytime soon.
The mental approach is the easy part to see
Silverfield hasn’t been shy about what he can promise fans right now and what he can’t. Asked about expectations for year one at SEC Media Days he didn’t dodge it.
“This is not coach-speak,” Silverfield said. “Truly we make improvements every single day. Can we be the best in the country at the controllables, everything that we go out there every single day?”
He’s pointed to things fans can’t see on Saturdays as proof the culture is changing.
“Those are the things that we can measure on a day-to-day,” Silverfield said. “Are we handling ourselves academically, setting benchmarks and records for the highest GPA the most community service hours? Those are things that we get to see progress in.”
We’ll see if that translates to wins and how it happens.
He’s also been honest about where Arkansas stands against the SEC’s best.
“I don’t know when we line up how we even match up against Utah,” Silverfield said. “I don’t know how we match up with Georgia in our first SEC game from a talent standpoint. So let’s be the best in the country in the controllables. Best in the country in attitude.”
That kind of honesty could build trust with some in a fan base worn down by close losses. It also confirms what a lot of Razorbacks watchers already suspected heading into fall camp.
Nobody knows where the playmakers will come from
The quarterback race between KJ Jackson and AJ Hill won’t get settled anytime soon either. Silverfield said the competition runs all the way through camp and into game week.
“The quarterback competition will happen in training camp going all the way up till the first game and that’s the reality of it,” Silverfield said.
That kind of open competition can be a good sign for a program building depth. It can also mean nobody separated themselves enough to lock down the job outright.
Either way it leaves Hogs fans without a clear name to point to as the guy who takes over the offense. And the quarterback question is just the start of it.
Arkansas hasn’t shown much proof yet of playmakers who can consistently swing a game by themselves. That’s a real problem in the SEC where teams need someone who can create a play when the design breaks down.
This roster may be the least experienced group of difference makers any first-year coach has taken over at Arkansas in a long time. Maybe ever.
Culture and effort matter but they don’t replace a receiver who can win a jump ball or a defender who forces a turnover.
Even special teams is unsettled these days
Here’s the part that might surprise casual fans the most. Arkansas has usually had one thing it didn’t have to worry about and that’s the kicking game.
The Razorbacks spent years with steady production out of that spot behind Cam Little who’s now kicking in the NFL for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Over the last 60-plus years there has rarely been a season with that being a question mark. That kind of stability at kicker has been rare for most programs across the sport for a long stretch of time.
Now even that job is unclear heading into camp. Fans don’t have a settled answer for who handles field goals and extra points this fall and that hasn’t been the case around Fayetteville in quite a while.
Add it all up and Arkansas has almost no position group where the answer feels locked in. Quarterback, playmakers on offense and defense and now even the kicking game are all open questions at the same time.
That’s an unusual spot for a Power Four program to be in this deep into an offseason.
It also explains why the next month of fall camp reports will matter so much to Razorbacks fans starving for something concrete.
Silverfield keeps steering the conversation back to effort and discipline because that’s what he can control right now.
The roster answers will come but they won’t come quickly and Hogs fans should brace for a long August of guesswork before the season opener finally arrives.
Key takeaways
- Silverfield’s message centers on culture, discipline and effort since he’s openly said Arkansas doesn’t yet know how it matches up talent-wise with teams like Utah and Georgia
- The quarterback battle between KJ Jackson and AJ Hill stays open through fall camp with no firm timeline for a decision
- Arkansas’s kicking game is unsettled for the first time in years after long stability at the position, adding one more unknown to a roster already short on proven playmakers
