Ryan Silverfield keeps telling folks he doesn’t care what anybody thinks about his final record.
That’s a nice line for a press conference. But it’s mostly a front.
Ten years from now, that record is the only thing a lot of fans will remember. Just ask the three coaches Arkansas has fired over the past decade.
None of them will be remembered for their disclaimers. All basically had the same ones about vowing to be better next season and that didn’t happen but once (2021).
Silverfield’s stance also skips right past something an old Arkansas legend once told Frank Broyles. John Barnhill’s advice was simple.
Teams get remembered less for what happens in November than for what everybody expected back in August.
Silverfield might want to look that one up before he keeps waving off the numbers. Despite the UA basically trying to dismiss anything that happened before 2000 there are still remarkable parallels that can be drawn.
A brutal slate awaits the Hogs
The Razorbacks are back on top of a list nobody wants to top.
ESPN’s Football Power Index came out Thursday and ranked Arkansas No. 1 for toughest schedule in the country. The Hogs sit at No. 47 overall, just ahead of fellow SEC bottom-dweller Mississippi State.
Nine of the top 10 hardest schedules belong to SEC teams, so Arkansas isn’t exactly alone in that misery.
The home schedule alone reads like a murderer’s row.
Arkansas hosts Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Vanderbilt and LSU inside Razorback Stadium.
Then the road trips get worse. The Razorbacks travel to Texas A&M, Auburn and Texas. Add a Week Two flight out to Utah, a team Big 12 media picked to finish third in a wide-open league race, and there’s barely a breather anywhere on the calendar.
FPI projects Arkansas to land around 4-8 overall. Swing games against Utah, South Carolina, Auburn, Tennessee and Vanderbilt could tip that record either direction.
Don’t ask me for the two games they are expected to win for that number because it’s going to have to be one of those games where nobody sees it coming unless things change from the preseason.
Close losses built the foundation
Last year’s 2-10 record wasn’t as bad as the number suggests.
Arkansas dropped six games by a single score, mostly from turnovers, missed assignments and blown coverages. Silverfield says his roster feels the sting of that.
“Our players are hungry,” Silverfield has said repeatedly. “Those guys who came back from last year, the newcomers, the staff, everybody’s hungry. We want kind of avoid all the outside noise, there’s not a prove everybody else wrong, let’s just go prove ourselves right, like what we’re capable of doing.”
Barnhill’s point still stands, though. Nobody remembers a coach’s disclaimers.
They remember whether August’s forecast matched November’s results.
Silverfield can call the schedule an opportunity all he wants, and he can keep insisting the record won’t define him.
History at Arkansas says otherwise. Come fall, folks in Fayetteville will judge the Hogs against exactly the numbers he says don’t matter.
Key takeaways
- ESPN’s FPI ranks Arkansas No. 1 for toughest schedule in the country
- The Hogs sit at No. 47 overall, just ahead of Mississippi State
- FPI projects a 4-8 overall record for Arkansas
