[Check out RJ Young’s ultimate 134 college football rankings here]
Conference ranking: 12th in SEC (+25000 to win conference) Teams ahead of them: Kentucky (28), Wisconsin (27), Miami (26), Iowa State (25), Iowa (24) Teams behind them: North Carolina State (30), Nebraska (31), SMU (32), Maryland (33), Texas Tech (34)
[Arkansas 2024 schedule]
RJ’s take: Nobody wants to be head coach at Arkansas more than Sam Pittman. I know this because he followed up a disappointing 2023 season by going back to one of the most successful and controversial figures in Razorback sports history in hiring former UA head coach and play-caller extraordinaire Bobby Petrino to run his offense.
On the plus side: Petrino is one of the best offensive coordinators the sport has seen. Proof is not just what he did at UA, including leading the program to its first and only BCS berth in 2010, featuring in the Sugar and Cotton Bowl and finishing 11-2 with No. 3 ranking the final 2011 AP poll, but that he’s also the only active head coach to develop a Heisman winner, who became an NFL MVP at quarterback in Lamar Jackson when Petrino was head coach at Louisville, where he went 41-9.
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On the negative side: Well, you’ve seen his infamous neck brace picture open at the chest of his Razorback fleece? A face full of roadrash and a Sugar Bowl hat that looked like it came fresh out of its cellophane? Then you’ve got it.
Now Petrino’s coming over from calling plays for Texas A&M, and this will be his third SEC West spot as an OC, but there’s no hiding this is a high-risk, high-reward play for Pittman. Adding to the risk? Taylen Green is slated to start Week 1. He’s 6-foot-6 and has all the tools, but Arkansas’ only gimme on the schedule is the opener against UAPB. They’re gonna be in for a fistfight Week 2 against OSU.
Arkansas Razorbacks’ Win Total Odds: Over 4.5 (-110) Under 4.5 (-110)
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Rex Nelson has been senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2017, and he has a biweekly podcast called “Southern Fried.”
After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in 1981, he was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Democrat for a year before becoming editor of Arkadelphia’s Daily Siftings Herald. He was the youngest editor of a daily in Arkansas at age 23. Rex was then news and sports director at KVRC-KDEL from 1983-1985.
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He returned to the Democrat as assistant sports editor in 1985. From 1986-1989, he was its Washington correspondent. He left to be Jackson T. Stephens’ consultant.
Rex became the Democrat-Gazette’s first political editor in 1992, but left in 1996 to join then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s office. He also served from 2005-09 in the administration of President George W. Bush.
From 2009-2018, he worked stints at the Communications Group, Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities, and Simmons First National Corp.
Dylan Sherman is a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He is based in Northwest Arkansas and focuses on Tyson Foods Inc. and the transportation industry. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he has been with the newspaper since 2023.
