Head coach Sam Pittman and the Arkansas football team has seen four assistant coaches leave and four new assistants enter the program since the end of the season.
Arkansas' first coaching change came when strength and conditioning coach Jamil Walker was fired following the loss to Missouri in the regular season finale. Pittman brought in Ben Sowders, who was the director of strength and conditioning at Louisville in 2022. Arkansas actually saved $25,000 in this situation, as Walker made $425,000 annually and Sowders is set to make $400,000.
The next move was defensive coordinator Barry Odom leaving for the head coach position at UNLV on Dec. 6. Odom was the third-highest paid coordinator in the nation while at Arkansas, as he made $1.85 million annually after receiving a raise in March 2022. He actually took a pay cut of $10,000 for the UNLV job.
To replace Odom, Arkansas brought in former UCF defensive coordinator Travis Williams and former Florida State defensive backs coach Marcus Woodson to serve as defensive coordinator and co-defensive coordinator, respectively. Williams is expected to also coach linebackers, as he has done so previously at multiple stops. Woodson is expected to coach defensive backs, the position he has coached throughout his career.
Arkansas saved $50,000 at the defensive coordinator spot by hiring Williams and Woodson. Williams will make $1.1 million and Woodson will make $700,000 annually.
Linebackers coach Michael Scherer was officially announced as the new defensive coordinator at UNLV under Odom on Thursday, and his departure created the open spot on staff for Woodson. Scherer made just $325,000 annually with Arkansas.
On the other side of the ball, the Hogs lost tight ends coach Dowell Loggains, who left to take the offensive coordinator position at South Carolina. Pittman replaced Loggains with Morgan Turner, who pumped out plenty of NFL talent during his 13 seasons at Stanford. Arkansas saved $75,000 here and gained one of the more well-respected tight ends coaches in the nation at the same time.
UPDATE:
Arkansas reportedly parted ways with cornerbacks coach Dominique Bowman, as reported by HawgBeat on Friday night. That frees up $350,000, but the Hogs will be looking for a new defensive assistant, and a raise is expected to be coming for offensive coordinator Kendal Briles.
The current salary pool comes out to $5.69 million. Arkansas had a school-record salary pool total of $6.14 million last season.
Here is a full list of the salary pool for Arkansas assistant coaches as of this publishing of this story.
