Very quickly, Arkansas is a program in transition. The Razorbacks were throttled two weeks ago by Notre Dame in Fayetteville, laying down and seemingly quitting as the Fighting Irish took a massive lead before halftime. Arkansas dropped to 2-3 overall, and head coach Sam Pittman was fired a day later.
Ironically enough, Arkansas will turn to Bobby Petrino to lead the program for the rest of the year. The former Arkansas head coach now gets the interim tag, tasked with trying to salvage something from
this season and keep a recruiting class together.
The problem for Arkansas so far this season has been on the defensive side of the ball, which Petrino addressed immediately. He cleaned out several members of the defensive staff after getting the interim gig, installing Chris Wilson as the new defensive coordinator. Wilson was serving as the assistant defensive line coach.
Defensive backs coach Marcus Woodson and defensive line coach Deke Adams were also let go by Petrino.
Petrino will still call plays, but he named Kolby Smith as the official offensive coordinator.
“You’re looking at everybody that they have, the changes that they’ve made, the history of what they’ve done, and it’s everybody on our staff taking a look at it,” Josh Heupel said of the challenge of adapting to the changes.
Everything, particularly on the Arkansas defense, could change going forward. We saw UCLA install a new offensive play-caller and beat Penn State just days later. So now it’s up to the staff to do a deep dive into the history of these new hires in an attempt to prepare for some new looks.
“This is a unique situation, so you prepare for what’s on the tape, and you prepare for what potential unknowns could be as well,” Heupel said. “But you also understand that it’s not going to be exact replicas of anything that you’ve seen on tape as well in this situation. So communication from staff and players will be really critical in this one.”
Chris Wilson is an experienced defensive play-caller. He’s coming off of a stint in the UFL this spring after serving as the defensive coordinator at Colorado in 2021-22. Wilson has also spent time as the defensive coordinator at Mississippi State back in 2010-12. He was also the defensive line coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017, helping the organization win a Super Bowl.
Wilson will undoubtedly add a few wrinkles, looking to recreate Arkansas’ success against Tennessee last year.
Offensively, not much will change. Arkansas has big backs and a big quarterback with a pretty solid ability to move the football. Taylen Green has put up big numbers so far this season both on the ground and through the air. With Tennessee’s defensive struggles, we should see plenty of points on Saturday.
“Bobby’s done it at a really high level for a really long time,” Heupel said. “He’s done it inside the scope of this league. It’s a good football team. I said that at the very beginning of this press conference. They’ve played well. They’ve maybe been on the wrong side of the scoreboard here a little bit, but it’s a really good football team. And I think for everybody inside of our program, you understand that we’re going to get their best and their best is really good so we got to get prepared and go play really good football.”
Tennessee remains a two-touchdown favorite. Kickoff from Knoxville is set for 4:15 p.m. ET on Saturday.
