Razorback fans are not falling for the same old trick they’ve seen a million times before after Ryan Silverfield’s first week
The Razorbacks hired Ryan Silverfield last week.
The Arkansas Razorbacks are in a very bad position. They just finished the season with two wins, losing some pretty embarrassing games, and fired their head coach, Sam Pittman. They then hired Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield to replace Pittman. So far, Silverfield has said all of the right things, but that’s something Razorback fans are used to. Pittman did the same thing.
Fans are eager to see tangible results that inspire hope and confidence in the team’s future progress.
“You can win, and you can win big here,” new Arkansas head coach Ryan Silverfield said on 103.7 The Buzz in Little Rock, Arkansas. “And there’s no reason why we can’t. Obviously, there are some changes that need to happen, right, from a structural standpoint, from a standard standpoint.
“But either way, listen, the standard has to be of excellence in every single thing we do all the time. We cannot deviate from that. We can’t settle for anything. We are going to swing for the fences, and when I talk about that, that’s every opportunity we get in everything we are doing.”
Razorback fans not buying Silverfield’s ‘coach speak’ in first week
This is not a fan base that knows how to be optimistic about much. And, give them the benefit of the doubt, there isn’t much to be optimistic about when it comes to football in the state. Fans are already calling this the worst hire Arkansas could have made, and if you’re one of them, I’d suggest looking at what the Penn State Nittany Lions have done with their search for a head coach.
Silverfield is not perfect, and he doesn’t have to win a National Championship. He has to win football games. To do that, though, you have to know how to recruit in this day and age, how to coach, and how to develop.
“We’ve beaten SEC teams, I’ve out-recruited SEC teams,” Silverfield told Hogs Plus’ Bo Mattingly. “When a lot of these SEC coaches were grad assistants and doing all those things, I was coaching Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson… I think that seven years in the NFL is pretty damn good experience.”
Arkansas is not a program that can afford to go through another Chad Morris era, where a Group of Five coach said and did all the right things, heck, even recruited some of the best players we have seen in recent memory, but didn’t have the results. Arkansas needs Silverfield to pan out, and the fans won’t change their thinking about him until he gives them reason to.
Silverfield’s initial success in flipping in-state kids and securing four-star recruits can foster a sense of progress and renewed hope among fans. When you have to play teams like the LSU Tigers, Texas A&M Aggies, Ole Miss Rebels, Auburn Tigers, Tennessee Volunteers, and Texas Longhorns every single year, it’s hard to win.
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