Pig Trail Nation’s Mike Irwin on revenue issues, Razorbacks’ basketball
After disappointing loss to Kentucky at home, looking at 6-3 Hogs heading into back end of SEC schedule.
Razorbacks hold firm in AP poll as Nebraska slides and chaos brews
The latest Associated Press Top 25 poll came out Monday, and there’s plenty for Arkansas Razorbacks fans to chew on.
The very top didn’t change, but the movement around the poll says a lot about where the Hogs sit as the season grinds on.
Arizona stayed planted at No. 1 after another unbeaten week. The Wildcats are still perfect and still the clear choice of voters.
Michigan jumped up to No. 2 after a strong stretch that included a win over Nebraska. UConn slid back a spot, followed by Duke and Illinois rounding out the top five.
For Arkansas, the bigger story sits a little farther down the list. The Razorbacks remain inside the Top 25, holding their ground while other teams shuffled around them.
That matters in February, when style points fade and results carry more weight.
The biggest mover in the poll was Nebraska, which dropped four spots to No. 9 after back-to-back losses.
The Huskers had been unbeaten. That didn’t last once they ran into Michigan and Illinois. Those losses knocked Nebraska out of the small club of undefeated teams.
Nebraska forward Pryce Sandfort summed up the week simply.
“Obviously, back-to-back losses, we just have to look at the film and learn from it,” Sandfort said. “Keep our heads high and flush it as we get ready for Rutgers this week.”
That quote should sound familiar to Arkansas fans. College basketball seasons don’t move in straight lines. One bad week can change the conversation fast.
With Nebraska falling, only Arizona and Miami (Ohio) remain unbeaten in Division I. That’s a reminder of how unforgiving the schedule becomes once conference play deepens.
From an Arkansas angle, this poll shows how thin the margin is. Teams rise quickly. Teams fall just as fast.
The Hogs staying ranked means voters still see Arkansas as part of the national picture, even with inconsistency popping up across the country.
The SEC is well represented again, and Arkansas is right there in the mix. Poll voters didn’t overreact.
That’s the lane Arkansas needs to stay in. The Razorbacks don’t have to chase headlines. They just need to keep winning games that matter. Nebraska’s slide is proof of what happens when momentum slips.
Rankings don’t win games, but they do shape perception. Arkansas holding its spot sends a clear message: the Razorbacks are still viewed as a team capable of handling the grind ahead.
The poll also shows how crowded the middle has become. Kansas, Gonzaga, Iowa State, Purdue, and Houston are packed together. A single win or loss can shift everything.
For the Hogs, that reality cuts both ways. There’s room to climb with the right wins. There’s also risk if focus slips. The next few weeks will tell the story.
This is the time of year when good teams stop worrying about rankings and start worrying about habits. Nebraska learned that lesson the hard way. Arkansas has the chance to learn it without falling first.
As the season moves forward, the Razorbacks sit in a position that still matters. Ranked. Relevant.
And very much part of the national conversation — even if the spotlight wandered elsewhere this week.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: 02-02-26
Trying to make sense of Arkansas’ puzzling letdown loss to UK. Groundhog day. Defensive debates!
Gus Malzahn retires, ending career Arkansas never stopped debating
In Arkansas, Gus Malzahn never really left.
His name still floats through Razorback conversations like humidity in August. It sticks. It lingers. It sparks arguments before the coffee cools.
So when Gus Malzahn announced his retirement after 35 years in coaching, it didn’t land as just another national headline in Fayetteville.
It felt personal.
Malzahn’s career officially ended with him stepping away as offensive coordinator at Florida State Seminoles, but long before Auburn wins or ACC play calls, Arkansas shaped the arc. High school titles. Booster intrigue. A forced hire that still divides fans.
Even a one-year detour at Arkansas State that changed his life.
If college football careers had a fault line, Malzahn’s would run straight through Northwest Arkansas.
He didn’t retire angry. He didn’t leave chasing one more stop. He said the grind finally caught him. Recruiting never ends. Travel never pauses. Coaching now asks for as much energy off the field as on it.
Eventually, the math doesn’t work.
High school roots that changed Arkansas football
Before the SEC ever argued about tempo, Malzahn was winning championships at Shiloh Christian and Springdale High School.
His teams didn’t squeeze out wins. They overwhelmed opponents with speed and confidence.
Those Arkansas high school years weren’t a footnote. They were the blueprint.
That success created momentum that spilled into the college game. Word traveled fast in Northwest Arkansas, and boosters paid attention.
That attention eventually pushed Malzahn into Fayetteville in 2006, when Arkansas hired him as offensive coordinator.
The move came under head coach Houston Nutt, but it wasn’t a simple staff decision.
Boosters in Springdale wanted Malzahn in red. Athletic director Frank Broyles made it happen, whether the head coach wanted it or not.
It remains one of the most polarizing hires in Razorbacks history.
The offense exploded. The tension did too.
Fayetteville fallout and career on move
Authority blurred. Roles overlapped. Arkansas fans still debate whether the move modernized the program or destabilized it.
The truth probably sits uncomfortably in the middle.
The Razorbacks weren’t boring, though. And in college football, that counts for something.
Malzahn didn’t stay long at Arkansas. He rarely stayed anywhere once the noise started.
He carried the same reputation everywhere else. Fast tempo. Aggressive play calls. Quarterbacks forced to think faster than defenders.
Sometimes it looked brilliant. Sometimes it looked reckless.
It always drew opinions.
Before landing at Auburn, Malzahn made a stop that mattered more than most people realized.
One loud year at Arkansas State
Malzahn spent one season as head coach at Arkansas State Red Wolves, and it changed everything.
Jonesboro buzzed immediately. The offense clicked. Wins followed.
And just as quickly as he arrived, Malzahn was gone.
That one year turned him from assistant to head-coaching commodity.
Auburn noticed. The national spotlight followed.
Sometimes it only takes one season to rewrite a résumé.
The jump came fast. Expectations followed faster.
Auburn pressure and long climb
At Auburn Tigers, Malzahn reached the sport’s highest level and learned how thin the margin can be.
Winning wasn’t enough. Winning the right way mattered.
Even then, patience ran short.
His teams could look unstoppable one Saturday and puzzling the next.
Praise and criticism followed him equally.
Malzahn became a coach fans debated even while celebrating wins.
His career settled into a familiar rhythm. Innovate. Win. Frustrate. Reset.
By the time he returned to play-calling at Florida State, Malzahn was the veteran of tempo football.
The schemes were familiar. The delivery calmer. The grind heavier.
Coming full circle at Florida State
NIL reshaped recruiting. The transfer portal reshaped rosters. The job reshaped itself. That’s when retirement became real.
For Arkansas fans, Malzahn’s exit doesn’t close the debate. It probably never will.
Say his name around Razorback supporters and the room still splits.
Some remember progress. Others remember chaos. Everyone remembers the noise.
For a coach whose story always began in Arkansas, ending it on his own terms might be the rarest win of all.
Post Malone, Jelly Roll heat up Razorback Stadium this summer
July in Fayetteville doesn’t sneak up on you. It sits on your shoulders. It sticks to your shirt.
And on Saturday, July 11, it’ll settle right into Razorback Stadium when Post Malone and Jelly Roll bring Post Malone and Jelly Roll Present: The BIG ASS Stadium Tour Part 2 to town.
Nine-time diamond-certified global superstar Post Malone and seven-time Grammy-nominated entertainer Jelly Roll are teaming up again for another stadium run after a huge tour last year.
This summer version stretches coast to coast, stopping at some of the country’s biggest football venues. Razorback Stadium is now one of them, right in the middle of an Arkansas July.
For Arkansas fans, that means trading fall Saturdays for midsummer nights. No kickoff. No hoodies.
Just heat rising off the concrete and music bouncing around a stadium built for noise.
When calendar says July, Arkansas listens
This isn’t the kind of event that pretends July is comfortable. Razorback Stadium in mid-July is a known thing
The sun hangs around. The air doesn’t move much. And by nightfall, the heat doesn’t leave. It just changes moods.
That’s the setting for this stop on the tour.
A place where fans are used to sweating through September games now get a full summer concert, complete with stadium lights, big sound, and a crowd ready to lean into it.
The tour’s first run proved the pairing works. Post Malone brings genre-blending hits that don’t care what label they fall under. Jelly Roll brings songs shaped by life stories and hard edges.
Together, they fill big spaces, even when the weather refuses to cooperate.
Tickets, presales and planning ahead
Tickets for the Fayetteville show are rolling out in stages, giving fans time to plan around summer schedules and July heat.
Fans can sign up for the Post Malone artist presale ahead of the deadline on Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 11:59 p.m.
That presale opens Friday, Feb. 6 at 10 a.m. and doesn’t require a special code. Access is tied directly to Ticketmaster accounts.
Additional presales through Citi and American Express follow before tickets become available to the general public on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 10 a.m. through Live Nation.
It’s the kind of planning Arkansas fans already understand. July shows mean pacing yourself, hydrating early, and settling in once the sun starts to dip.
Built for big crowds, even in heat
Produced by Live Nation, The BIG ASS Stadium Tour Part 2 is designed for places that can hold tens of thousands. Razorback Stadium fits that bill, heat and all.
Post Malone’s career has crossed hip-hop, rock, and country without slowing down. Jelly Roll’s rise has leaned into honesty and Southern grit.
Neither act is built for small rooms anymore. They need space, volume, and a crowd willing to ride it out.
Country singer-songwriter Carter Faith will open on all headlining dates, setting the tone early while the stadium fills and the evening finally starts to cool, at least a little.
Fayetteville joins summer stadium circuit
The July 11 stop is part of a long list of stadium dates across the country.
The tour hits places like Jack Trice Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, McLane Stadium, and Rice-Eccles Stadium.
These are football homes used to noise, pressure, and packed stands.
In July, they become something else. Less structured. Less scripted. More about surviving the heat and enjoying the night.
For Arkansas, it’s another step toward using Razorback Stadium as more than a fall address.
Big tours are circling Fayetteville, and this one brings two of the most recognizable names in modern music right into peak summer.
Different kind of Arkansas night
There won’t be a coin toss. No marching band. No scoreboard watching.
Just a crowd spread across the stadium, heat lingering in the air, and music doing the rest.
Fans who remember September openers know Razorback Stadium can hold sound.
In July, it’ll hold it differently. Slower. Heavier. Louder as the night goes on.
July 11 won’t feel like SEC football. It’ll feel like Arkansas summer — humid, loud, and fully committed — inside Razorback Stadium.
Whistles, Misses, Momentum Flip Razorbacks’ Streak Against Kentucky
For one long, strange night inside Bud Walton Arena, the usual comforts didn’t apply.
Arkansas hadn’t lost at home all season. The Razorbacks had made Bud Walton feel less like a gym and more like a bad idea for visitors.
That streak ended Saturday when Kentucky walked in, whistled a different tune, and walked out with an 85–77 win that felt louder than the final margin.
The Wildcats didn’t just beat the Hogs. They outshot them, outpaced them early, and survived a game that felt like it needed a traffic cop more than a referee.
Seven technical fouls. Forty-five total fouls. Fifty-six free throw attempts. This wasn’t basketball so much as an endurance test with whistles.
Kentucky made it through the chaos better.
The Wildcats shot 53.6% from the floor and 46.2% from three. Arkansas, meanwhile, scraped together 49.2% overall and 21.4% from deep. For the second straight game, the Razorbacks couldn’t buy a jumper or cash in at the line.
That combination tends to lose games.
The home loss dropped Arkansas Razorbacks to 16–6 overall and 6–3 in the SEC. Kentucky evened the season series by moving to 15–7 and the same conference mark, and it did so by setting the tone early and never letting go.
The Wildcats jumped out fast, hitting 10 of their first 11 shots. Less than 10 minutes in, Arkansas was staring at a 13-point hole.
The Razorbacks didn’t turn the ball over much — just five times all night — but that didn’t matter when nearly everything Kentucky threw up found the net.
“I feel that they came out, and they kind of set the tone instead of us setting the tone,” Meleek Thomas said. “They scored more. Kind of played our offense to start the game out.”
That early stretch forced Arkansas into catch-up mode, which might’ve worked if the free throws had cooperated.
They didn’t.
Arkansas finished 16-of-26 at the line, including a sequence that summed up the evening. Three technical fouls were whistled on Kentucky in a 38-second span in the second half. Six free throws followed.
Darius Acuff Jr. calmly made four of them. Malique Ewin missed both of his, including an airball that echoed louder than the boos.
“Just really taking our time,” Thomas said. “Because if we were to take our time, I feel we won’t have any issues.”
Taking time is hard when the game feels like it’s being played in fragments.
The Razorbacks did get to the basket. That part worked. What didn’t was the outside shooting. Arkansas went just 3-of-14 from three. Trevon Brazile hit two. Acuff hit one. Everyone else went empty.
“We could have, but we were getting to the basket and doing stuff,” Hogs coach John Calipari said. “The issue became we weren’t making free throws.”
Calipari wanted more pace, too. Arkansas only took 14 threes, and that number felt low in a game that begged for spacing.
“There are some games we’ll shoot 25 3s,” he said. “I’d like to get more, like to play faster.”
Kentucky didn’t need to play faster. It played sharper.
Otega Oweh controlled the night for the Wildcats. He scored a game-high 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting, grabbed eight rebounds, and added three assists. When Arkansas made a push, Oweh answered it.
The whistles couldn’t slow him down.
For the Hogs, the more troubling storyline came from the box score. Karter Knox, a sophomore Arkansas needs badly, finished with zero points, one rebound, and two fouls. He never found rhythm, and Arkansas felt every empty possession.
Calipari didn’t dodge that reality.
“I met with Karter after because I told him, ‘we’re not winning without you playing,’” he said. “But Billy is playing with so much emotion and passion, he deserves to be on the floor.”
That created a balancing act. Knox’s upside is real. Billy’s effort is undeniable. Arkansas needs both, and Calipari knows it.
“That may mean I got to play both of them,” he said. “But we need him to win.”
The loss didn’t erase what Arkansas has built this season. It did, however, expose a few cracks. Slow starts. Free-throw struggles. Nights when the outside shot disappears and doesn’t come back.
Those things travel with a team.
Bud Walton Arena finally saw one slip away, and it happened in a game that felt more like a cautionary tale than a collapse. Kentucky didn’t need drama. It just survived it better.
Arkansas will have to clean it up, slow it down at the line, and find some rhythm before the next whistle storm rolls in.
Because nights like this don’t stay rare for long.
Kentucky’s toughness, rebounding undo Arkansas in Bud Walton loss
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Here’s the thing about desperation — it doesn’t care where you’re playing or who’s ranked.
It just shows up, elbows first, and starts grabbing rebounds.
That’s what Kentucky brought to Bud Walton Arena on Saturday night, and it was enough to send Arkansas to an 85-77 loss that felt both familiar and frustrating.
The Wildcats didn’t arrive looking pretty. They arrived looking urgent.
And when the Razorbacks played like a team expecting things to work out eventually, Kentucky played like a team that couldn’t wait around.
Arkansas dug the hole early. Again.
A slow start let the Wildcats sprint out to a 13-point lead in the first half, the kind that makes a home crowd restless and a head coach start scanning the bench a little sooner than planned.
The Hogs did rally. They always do. They erased the deficit and even grabbed a four-point lead midway through the second half.
That’s usually the script where things turn.
This time, it didn’t.
What followed was a stretch of basketball that looked less like execution and more like survival, and Kentucky was better at that brand of chaos.
The Wildcats owned the boards, stayed physical, and took advantage when Arkansas didn’t.
“Two things happened, and you can talk shooting and all that,” head coach John Calipari said postgame. “They out-toughed us. The thing we talked about, rebounding, they out-rebounded by nine, 10 rebounds.
”And we said, ‘You’re not winning the game unless you do that’, and then throw on top of it, we didn’t make free throws, again.”
Rebounding told the story. Kentucky finished with a 35-24 edge, including 10 offensive rebounds that turned into 10 second-chance points.
Those weren’t highlight plays. They were the kind that wear you down. Missed box-outs. Loose balls. Extra possessions that quietly pile up until the scoreboard reflects them.
Then there were the technical fouls. Seven of them. In one 38-second span, Kentucky picked up three technicals, gifting Arkansas a chance to flip momentum without even running offense.
The Hogs went 4-for-6 at the line during that stretch. It was helpful, but not nearly enough.
Malique Ewin missed both of his technical free throws, one as an airball, before Darius Acuff Jr. knocked down the next four. Points were there for the taking, and Arkansas left a couple sitting at the line.
The Razorbacks didn’t escape the whistle either. Two technicals in the second half led to a bizarre sequence where Kentucky shot six straight free throws without taking a dribble.
The Wildcats made five. That small parade to the stripe fueled a 7-0 run and pushed their lead to seven with just over seven minutes left.
“When they got the (physicality) of the game, they did some things and didn’t respond the way we talked,” Calipari said. “And I knew the game was going to be physical. I told them, and it may be a little chippy, and I said, but you cannot get a technical or do something that costs us a game, and it’s exactly what happened.”
The numbers didn’t scream disaster. Arkansas shot nearly 50 percent from the field. The problem was everything attached to those shots.
The Hogs went 3-for-14 from three-point range and finished at 60 percent from the free-throw line.
“You know, we again, we shoot 49% almost 50%, but we’re 3 for 14 and 60% from the line,” Calipari said. “That’s not winning basketball.”
It didn’t help that two starters were nearly invisible. Karter Knox and Nick Pringle combined for zero points. Knox pulled down one rebound.
Pringle didn’t grab one at all. On a night when effort and physicality decided the game, Arkansas didn’t get enough from either spot.
“I met with Karter after because I told him, ‘we’re not winning without you playing,’” Calipari said. “But Billy is playing with so much emotion and passion, he deserves to be on the floor, which may mean I got to play both of them.”
Pringle’s night wasn’t much better, though Calipari wasn’t ready to panic.
“It wasn’t one of his better games, but I love the kid,” he said. “Enjoyed coaching him, but he’s got to give us more. And it’s mainly defending and rebounding and flying up and down the court.”
Billy Richmond III did give the Hogs something to lean on. He finished with 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting, added five rebounds, and brought an edge that was hard to miss.
He was one of only two players to finish with a positive plus-minus.
“Billy wanted to be Billy,” Arkansas guard Meleek Thomas said. “Come in and impact the game. An amazing player, can get to it on offense and defense.”
The loss drops the Razorbacks to 16-6 overall and 6-3 in SEC play, the kind of record that still looks fine on paper but feels heavier after a night like this. The timing of what comes next might help.
Arkansas gets a full week before hitting the road to face Mississippi State, a pause that Calipari believes is necessary whether his team likes it or not.
“It comes at a good time,” he said. “It would have been better after a win to regroup, but the kids, I was going to give them two days off whether we won or lost.”
The message is simple, even if the fix isn’t. The Hogs don’t need prettier shots or louder crowds. They need to rebound, defend, and respond when games turn physical.
Kentucky showed them what desperation looks like.
Arkansas has a week to decide how badly it wants to return the favor on the road at Mississippi State next Saturday.
Former Razorbacks’ guard Al Dillard with memories of Kentucky games
As Hogs get ready for yet another big-time matchup with Wildcats, what key shooter remembers from time playing, looking forward to Saturday.
Razorbacks assistant Kenny Payne previewing Saturday game with Kentucky
Wildcats coming to town and it’s a huge game for fans as always but coaches trying to keep team focused on continuing to win.
