The sky is falling; the program is on fire; certain coaches and administrators have fallen asleep at the wheel.
If you opened Twitter at any point in the last few days, that’s the general consensus surrounding Arkansas football right now. The Razorbacks currently lead the nation in outgoing transfers, with 22 scholarship players in the portal. Or is it 21? It’s easy to lose count, as the number seems to change every hour or so. Just take freshman running back Braylen Russell’s wild Tuesday timeline as an example of that:
- 10:30 a.m. – 247Sports’ Trey Biddy reports Russell entering the portal.
- 10:35 a.m. – Rivals’ Mason Choate reports Russell personally told him he was not entering the portal
- 12:51 p.m. – On3’s Hayes Fawcett reports Russell is entering the portal, and Russell reposts the graphic on his Instagram.
- 12:55 p.m. – Choate posts a screenshot of his messages with Russell where he directly said he wasn’t transferring, confirming he made a u-turn.
- 4:35 p.m. – On3’s Pete Nakos and others now confirm Russell has withdrawn his name from the portal.
The moral of the story? Truth is just a concept, nobody knows anything, and everything is subject to change at a moment’s notice. Hell, by the time this article goes out there are certain to be even more pieces added to the puzzle — some of which are bound to be positive, with new of transfer visits starting to trickle out.
Welcome to the new era of college sports.
Arkansas Fans Fed Up Amidst Mass Exodus
Who knows whether Russell will actually end up suiting up for the Hogs next season. But either way, that wild transfer saga is a microcosm of the reason Arkansas fans feel like they’re going insane right now. Take a look at a few reactions from fans and media today:
It truly does feel like it’s been one piece of bad news after another. Even national media has taken notice of the constant train of negativity coming out of the football facility, with 247Sports’ Brandon Crawford acknowledging that Arkansas fans are “FED UP with the situation right now in Fayetteville.” Bordeaux, a prominent YouTuber with nearly half a million subscribers, said that Arkansas is “begging for a rebuild” on the video game College Football 25.
A year removed from students sparring with offensive coordinator Dan Enos on his university email, it appears fans have found athletic director Hunter Yurachek’s phone number and have been blowing up his messages.
While this is clearly a step too far, it’s a testament to the immense frustration fans are feeling right now. That led Pinto, a prominent and longtime online voice in the Arkansas fanbase, to make a bold claim on Tuesday afternoon: “Haven’t seen Razorback Twitter this hostile since the Chad Morris days.”
Phew. While it’s hard to imagine Arkansans being more upset now than they were for back-to-back 2-10 seasons, he might have a point here.
Is This the Most “Hogwild” Fans Have Been?
It’s fair to say that nothing will top the misery Razorback fans felt throughout the Morris tenure. Losses to Colorado State, San Jose State, Western Kentucky and North Texas along with zero SEC wins will do that to you. Embarrassments like the “Club Dub” fiasco and the Mean Green’s infamous fair catch dupe and punt return touchdown caused fans to cover their heads with paper bags in shame.
And yet amongst all of that, Arkansas fans never lost their humor and wit. It became a running joke about just how awful the team was. Of course it was embarrassing when former Razorback Ty Storey bulldozed the Hogs and led Western Kentucky to a 45-19 win in Fayetteville – but there was also a hilarious irony to it.
There was also a sense that this was only temporary. Morris was so bad that fans knew the pain would be over soon. Sure enough, he was canned before he even finished two seasons in charge. But the current state of Arkansas football has much more of a “purgatory” feel to it – an inescapable mediocrity that pervades the ups and so, so many one-score downs.
The Hogs, after all, have had their fair share of fun moments in the last three seasons: drubbing Ole Miss at home and winning a shootout against Kansas in the 2022 Liberty Bowl, an overtime win in the Swamp in 2023 and a thrilling field storm after upsetting No. 4 Tennessee in October.
But there’s also been so much misery and disappointment sandwiched in there. Almost getting beat by Bobby Petrino’s Missouri State and losing to Liberty in 2022. The brutalities of 2023 are too long to even count. Even in 2024, a shocking loss to an Oklahoma State team that went on to finish 3-9 and blowing winnable games against two rivals in Texas A&M and Missouri.
The aggregate of all of those highs and lows is a horrible in-between – just good enough for the current regime to stay afloat, but not good enough for any notable success. That leads to a growing sense of restlessness and frustration in a fanbase expecting better than two Liberty Bowl appearances with a 4-8 season sandwiched in between.
SEC Peers’ Success Worsens Arkansas’ Outlook
The vastly different results seen at other SEC programs serves as salt in the wound for the Razorbacks. Ole Miss and South Carolina – two schools with worse all-time winning percentages than Arkansas – both finished this season 9-3 on the precipice of the College Football Playoff.
How’d they do it? A unified front of head coach, administration and fanbase. Ole Miss has been supercharged by tremendous NIL funding and the charismatic Lane Kiffin cultivating a great relationship with the Rebel faithful. The Gamecocks, too, have united around a lovable figure in head coach Shane Beamer. By punching above their weight in recruiting and smartly using the transfer portal, South Carolina was able to produce a dream season.
It also doesn’t help that Kiffin has made a habit of poaching some of Arkansas’ best recruits and players – and bragged about it on social media. He took Pooh Paul in the portal last year, then swiped four-star offensive lineman Connor Howes on Signing Day last week. Four of the current Razorbacks in the portal have visits to Ole Miss on the books, too.
Meanwhile, many folks feel like Arkansas remains stuck in second gear. Yes, Pittman earned a lot of credibility with his fairy tale 2021 season. But judging by the opinions of the vast majority of the fanbase, that credit in the bank has long since expired in light of recent shortcomings – and fans’ complaints have fallen on deaf ears with the administration.
KNWA’s Alyssa Orange called in to ESPN Arkansas’ Hit That Line on Tuesday and hit the nail on the head about the emerging Hogs-to-Rebels feeder pipeline.
“Ole Miss right now screams stability, regardless of how the results of the season unfolded,” Orange said. “Stability with a head coach. Stability in a program and a trajectory that you can see ‘point A’ and ‘point B’ and it makes sense. You don’t see that right now at Arkansas.”
“You’ve got to find a way to show people that the trajectory is there and it’s a clear course…because it doesn’t make sense right now.”
The impact of the transfer portal and NIL also can’t be understated for its role in driving a wedge between the football program and the fanbase. Watching star players leave the program and transfer to hated rivals and disputes over money causing locker room strife does nothing to help with fans’ attitudes toward the team.
You can’t fault fans for being pissed when Yurachek and Pittman both express confidence in their ability to keep the locker room together, only for a massive chunk of the team to hit the portal – again. And yes, players transfer out of every school. But Arkansas is leading the national pack in that category right now.
It feels like this may be the most disconnected fans have ever been from the athletic department, as the two parties are currently operating in entirely separate lanes.
The Morris era certainly brought more overall sadness, but those frustrations were mostly spread out over the nearly two years it lasted – and were balanced out with some satirical embracing of the misery.
But it certainly feels like in the current state of the Pittman era, in this exact moment (or maybe the moment before Russell’s withdrawal?), Arkansas football fans are more frustrated with their beloved program than they ever have been. At some point, something’s gotta give.
A lot of good news will certainly come in the next few weeks as the staff begins to plug some of these holes with incoming transfers, but right now you really can’t blame folks feeling like it’s time to bring out pitchforks and torches.
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Braylen Russell is back…or is he? Inside Arkansas breaks down his alleged return:
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More coverage of Arkansas football and the transfer portal from BoAS:
