Scouting the opponent: Arkansas Razorbacks

Tennessee will enjoy the first of two bye weeks this season on Sept. 28 and then travel to Fayetteville to take on Arkansas as the Vols open up conference play with two straight road games.

This looks like a make or break year for Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman, and his team will have already slogged through some tough challenges before the Vols arrive.

Arkansas will have played at Oklahoma State on Sept. 7, at Auburn on Sept. 21 and will have played Texas A&M in Dallas the week before Tennessee comes to town off of a bye.

On the surface, things appear to be set up nicely for the Vols from a scheduling standpoint. Additionally, that’s not an easy early season schedule that Pittman and the Hogs are facing, so the temperature on a seat that’s already hot could be scorching by the first week in October.

2023 Record: 4-8 (1-7 SEC)

Head Coach: Sam Pittman (23-25, entering fifth season)

SEASON OUTLOOK: OFFENSE

Arkansas had a lot of problems last season—that tends to be the case when you win just one league game—and moving the football was near the top of that list.

Arkansas was 13th in the SEC in total offense last season (326.5 ypg), ahead of only Vanderbilt. The 26.6 ppg the Hogs put up last season was the fifth-lowest total in the SEC.

In an effort to fix the offense Pittman made the kind of staff move some might call desperate, bringing in former Razorback head coach Bobby Petrino as the offensive coordinator.

Petrino spent last season Jimbo Fisher’s staff at Texas A&M.

The Arkansas offense also took some major hits in the transfer portal losing, among others, starting quarterback K.J. Jefferson (UCF), starting tailback Rocket Sanders (South Carolina) along with three starting offensive linemen; Devon Manuel (Florida) and Andrew Chamblee (SMU).

For an offense that wasn’t very good to begin with, that’s a lot of holes to fill.

For Petrino to engineer substantial offensive improvement Boise State transfer Taylen Green must be a ‘hit’ at quarterback.

Green has some obvious ability, but he is hardly a slam-dunk to right the offensive ship. He threw for 1,729 yards at Boise State last season while completing just 57% of his throws with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

Additionally, there just doesn’t seem to be a ton of offensive skill here to work with.

Arkansas does return leading receiver Andrew Armstrong who had 56 catches for 764 yards and five touchdowns.

Tight end Luke Hasz played in only five games last fall as a freshman but ended up as the third leading receiver on the team with 16 catches for 253 yards (15.8 ypc) and three touchdowns.

The ground game has been a strength for Arkansas when they have had success under Pittman. That was decidedly not the case last fall.

The Hogs are hoping that Utah transfer Ja’Quinden Jackson (797 yards, 4.9 ypc, 4 TDs) can bolster a ground game that saw the quarterback, Jefferson, lead the team in rushing last fall.

There are plenty of questions at the skill spots, but for an old offensive line coach like Pittman, the struggles the Razorbacks had at the line of scrimmage last season had to be particularly galling.

Arkansas averaged over 5.0 yards per carry in both 2021 and 2022, but that fell all the way off to 3.5 ypc last year. Another ugly stat; the Hogs had an SEC low nine rushing touchdowns on the year.

Josh Braun is a returning starter at one guard spot, but the Razorbacks are relying on a bevy of transfers to solidify a shaky looking offensive front.

One of those transfers is center Addison Nichols, who left Tennessee for Arkansas. Nichols is expected to be the starter in the middle.

Arkansas doesn’t just need to fix the offensive line for the sake of the ground game. Hardly. The Razorbacks gave up 47 sacks last season, second worst in the SEC.

SEASON OUTLOOK: DEFENSE

Arkansas may not have been quite as bad on defense as it was offensively last season, but it’s an argument.

The Hogs made some strides last year under new defensive coordinator Travis Williams, dropping their total yards giving up per game by just over 100 down to 357 per game.

What they didn’t improve on greatly was keeping opponents off the scoreboard.

The Hogs gave up 27.9 ppg, 12th in the SEC, which gave them no chance to compete most weekends in the SEC with that offense.

Arkansas does bring back one headliner to watch up front. Landon Jackson started his career at LSU, but hit his stride after transferring to Arkansas after 2022.

Jackson led Arkansas in both sacks (6.5) and TFLs (13.5) last season and was a first-team All-SEC selection.

Cameron Ball (32 tackles, 1.5 TFLs) and Eric Gregory (16 tackles) are two experienced returners in the trenches.

Arkansas is hoping to get a big boost up front from Albany transfer Anton Juncaj. He wrecked FCS competition last fall, recording 15.0 sacks and 21.5 TFLs.

The second level could be a problem. Arkansas lost it’s top two tacklers from last year’s team when starting linebackers Jaheim Thomas and Chris Paul transferred out.

Getting that situation sorted out at linebacker is going to be something to watch. Sophomore Brad Spence, who made 11 tackles last fall, is the most experienced returner there.

Georgia transfer Xavier Sorey is expected to nail down one of the open starter jobs. He made two starts for the Bulldogs last fall, recording 19 tackles.

The secondary was the strength of the Hogs’ defense last fall. They ranked fourth in the SEC, surrendering 202 yards per game through the air. The 12 interceptions the defense came up with tied for third in the conference.

The strength of the back end is at the safety spots. Jayden Johnson (62 tackles) is the leading returning tackler and has 22 career starts under his belt.

Fifth year senior Hudson Clark (51 tackles, 4.5 TFLs)was the fifth leading tackler on the team last season from his safety spot. He began his career as a walk-on and has since made 34 starts for Arkansas.

One corner spot looks locked down by sophomore Jaylon Braxton who made six starts last season as a freshman.

Tennessee transfer Doneiko Slaughter is among a handful of players vying to get on the field at nickel or the other corner spot.

The kicking game will be something to watch early. The Hogs will be breaking in a new punter and placekicker this season.

Isaiah Sategna (12.0 ypr, 1 TD) is a guy to watch as a punt returner.

FINAL OUTLOOK

Sam Pittman is someone that you’re never likely to hear a negative word about as a person.

But that’s not going to win Arkansas any football games this year.

It’s hard to see things going great for the Hogs this fall.

Bringing in Petrino smacks of desperation and there’s not a lot of reason to believe that Green is going to any kind of real upgrade over Jefferson at quarterback.

There’s not a lot to get excited about at any of the offensive skill positions. The offensive line was awful last year and now has to be rebuilt.

Defensively Arkansas has some nice pieces, but there are real question marks at linebacker.

Even if the Hogs have a defense that’s in the top half of the SEC (ambitious) they will still struggle to be competitive barring some massive improvements on the offensive side of the ball.

As far as the Tennessee game specifically, it feels like the Vols are going to be catching them at a great time.

You can quibble that it’s unfair for Tennessee to play its first two conference games on the road. However, the Vols will be coming in off of an open date and Arkansas will have played a tough stretch.

That stretch includes back-to-back SEC games at Auburn and a neutral site game with Texas A&M immediately before Tennessee comes to Fayetteville.

If things have gone badly for the Hogs to that point—and let’s face, they very well could—the Vols could be facing an opponent that’s dealing with some serious off field distractions.

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