Not long ago, people around the country were on the edge of their seats impatiently waiting for the 2023 college football season to begin. With the midway point of the year upon us, some of those fans' excitement levels have dwindled while others have skyrocketed depending on how their favorite team has performed.
For Arkansas fans, the beginning of head coach Sam Pittman's fourth year on campus has been a major disappointment. After starting out with two victories over Western Carolina and Kent State, the Razorbacks have dropped four straight games to BYU, LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss.
Projected by the media to finish fifth in the SEC West by season's end, it was never expected that Arkansas was going to compete for championships. However, losing games in the fashion the Hogs have — blown leads, poor offensive line play and questionable in-game coaching decisions — isn't the best way to get in the good graces of the fanbase.
Coming into the year, it was believed that the Arkansas offense would need to make up for a defense in a transition period under defensive coordinator Travis Williams. Up to this point, though, the opposite has been true. The Razorbacks rank 110th in the nation in offensive yards per game (332.8) but rank 43rd in yards allowed per game (340.7). It's fair to say that if the Hogs' offense was playing up its preseason expectations, Arkansas could be a dark-horse candidate to win the SEC West.
To be completely fair, Arkansas' schedule hasn't exactly been easy. The BYU defeat in Fayetteville wasn't ideal, but road losses to a then-No.12 LSU team, a Texas A&M team that has had the Razorbacks' number ever since they joined the SEC in 2012 and a 16th-ranked Ole Miss team were always going to be difficult games to come away from unscathed.
Fortunately for the Hogs, the back half of the schedule eases up a bit in terms of difficulty. Sure, Arkansas does have to travel to take on the No. 11 Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, but the Razorbacks will only have one game away from home in the remaining five matchups of the season — a road tilt with the Florida Gators.
Can Arkansas take advantage of a favorable home schedule against Mississippi State, Auburn, Florida International and Missouri? Possibly, but it'll mean fixing a lot of the issues in the program first. Before focusing on the future of the program too much, let's take one last look at the first six games of the season and hand out grades for each position group.
- SLOT
- EDGE
- S
- S
- TE
- DT
- NICK
- OT
- OT
- TE