Taking a look at Arkansas football’s schedule inconsistencies
The SEC’s football scheduling has been interesting to say the least when it comes to who the Arkansas Razorbacks play and where.
SEC East opponents on the schedule are where it gets weird and there are some scheduling stats that may sound unfair to Arkansas fans.
This became pretty evident in 2020 when a road game at Florida and a home game with Georgia were added to complete Arkansas' 10-game pandemic-shortened schedule. The schedule was considered by Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek to be the most challenging schedule in the history of college football.
Well, it turns out these scheduling inconsistencies go all the way back to when Arkansas join the Southeastern Conference in 1992.
Florida
After the 2023 season, Arkansas will have played Florida five times since 2009. Of those meetings, four of them will have been played within the confines of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.
The only time in that span where they played in Fayetteville was in 2016. That was also Arkansas’ only win against Florida during that time, a 31-10 victory.
As conference foes, the Razorbacks and Gators had to wait four seasons to play their first regular season game against each other in 1996.
Vanderbilt
Arkansas and Vanderbilt have been in the same conference since 1992 but have played just seven times. The last time the Razorbacks played a game in Nashville was back in 2011, when Arkansas won 31-28.
In that span, Arkansas has played each SEC East team twice except for the Commodores (the only meeting was in Fayetteville in 2018, Vanderbilt won 45-31).
There have been droughts of nine seasons, from 1996-2004, and six seasons, from 2012-2017, where the Razorbacks and Commodores did not meet.
Kentucky
Of all the SEC East teams, Kentucky is the one Arkansas has played the fewest times with just eight meetings between the two, all of which have been since 1998. Kentucky leads the overall series 5-3 and the two teams have met twice since 2012.
In their first meeting, Kentucky led 20-7 in the third quarter but quarterback Clint Stoerner helped Arkansas rattle off 20 unanswered points in the second half to defeat the Wildcats.
Tennessee and South Carolina
From 1992-2002, each SEC team had two cross-divisional rivals. Arkansas had Tennessee and South Carolina. Arkansas and South Carolina remained cross-division rivals until the 2014 season, when the Battle Line Rivalry with Missouri was introduced.
Tennessee and Arkansas have played just three times since having a home-and-home in 2006 and 2007.
Since 2014, Arkansas has played South Carolina just twice, in Columbia in 2017 and Fayetteville in 2022.
As for Missouri and Georgia, there are no real inconsistencies with them on Arkansas’ previous schedules, with the Bulldogs being scheduled in the regular season 11 times since 1992. Missouri and Arkansas have played every season since 2014.