Funny thing about being picked last in the SEC. Nobody’s out here screaming that Arkansas football is doomed.
That would require folks to actually be talking about it in the first place.
Instead, a good chunk of the fan base has apparently decided basketball season is close enough to start planning for and it’s still July.
Chalk it up to John Calipari if you want. Publicly that’s the polite explanation for why hoops chatter is drowning out football talk before a single preseason practice snap gets taken.
Nobody wants to say the quiet part which is that a rough stretch of football has plenty of folks hedging their excitement until they see something worth getting excited about.
Ryan Silverfield knows exactly what’s being said about his team and he’s not pretending otherwise.
Media in Tampa put Arkansas at the bottom of the SEC and Silverfield met that news with a shrug and a lecture on how little the past matters going forward.
“Let’s call it what it is,” Silverfield said. “As you in the media that have the right and certainly should have your opinion on things, it’s unknown who our quarterback is. There’s a lot of unknowns on our roster. With those unknowns come uncertainty.
“So it makes sense to pick us at a certain part. I think a lot of people reflect on what happened last year and what’s happened in recent history. That has zero correlation to the success we’re going to have moving forward.”
Doubt is fine just don’t check out completely
Here’s the thing about doubt. It’s allowed.
Nobody’s required to buy a bunch of preseason hype for a team replacing its quarterback and leaning on a roster full of question marks. But there’s a difference between healthy skepticism and quietly deciding to give up on a season before Labor Day.
Ticket sales numbers this year suggest a good number of folks have already made their choice.
Turns out watching from the couch is an easier commitment than driving to Fayetteville for a team nobody can promise much about yet.
Can’t really blame anyone for that math. It does make Silverfield’s pep talk hit a little different when the stadium might have some empty seats behind him.
Center Caden Kitler isn’t worried about who shows up though. He said the locker room has turned the outside noise into its own kind of workout playlist.
“We use being the underdog as a chip on our shoulder,” Kitler said. “So every day that we see we’re ranked last or whatever we’re ranked, we use that as motivation every workout, every OTA we do, and that’s really helping us get through the offseason. We’re so excited to play football this year. It’s not even funny.”
Silverfield’s confident even when math says otherwise
Silverfield brought his own version of that same energy when someone read his head-to-head record against current SEC head coaches back to him.
He’s 5-2 against that group, 3-0 mark Auburn’s Alex Golesh and a 2-1 edge on Florida’s Jon Sumrall. His only loss came against Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, 34-27 back in 2023.
“That’s great. Keep doubting me,” Silverfield said. “Listen, people have the right to feel a certain way and that’s okay. I’ve been doubted my whole life. That’s not a bad thing.
“What ends up happening is you have a head coach that has a chip on his shoulder. Anybody that’s been around our program anybody that’s been around me knows that we’re going to do it the right way. In due time we’ll get this back to where it needs to be.”
That record is worth a nod but it came against a level of competition Silverfield left behind when he took this job.
The roster he’s building in Fayetteville doesn’t have the depth or experience he had access to before. That “in due time” phrase gets a little heavier every time it gets repeated to a fan base that’s already heard it more than once.
Kitler kept the same message going when asked about being picked last again. He sounds less bothered by empty seats than the ticket office probably is.
“Being ranked last is obviously a huge motivator for us,” Kitler said. “We like being the underdog but honestly we’re just focusing on us right now so it kind of plays both ways into it.
“We’re using it as motivation but at the end of the day what anybody cares what anybody thinks of us we know who we are and what we’re going to do this year.”
The Razorbacks get their answer in 40 days when North Alabama comes to Fayetteville on Sept. 5. Kickoff is 3:15 p.m. on SEC Network.
Might be worth turning it on even from the couch.
Key takeaways
- A lot of fans have shifted focus to basketball before football season even starts
- Ticket sales are running low which suggests plenty plan to watch from home
- Silverfield and Kitler both say the doubt is fueling the Hogs regardless of who shows up
