In the annals of if you can’t beat them, hire them coaching decisions, Memphis’s 32–31 win over Arkansas this season ranks way up there.
As confirmed by Sports Illustrated on Sunday, the Razorbacks have found their next head coach in the Tigers’ Ryan Silverfield, who was the architect of that September win for the Group of 5 program.
So, what does it mean for the proud SEC program which can’t find a consistent foothold?
What it means for Arkansas
It’s been quite the roller-coaster ride for the Razorbacks over the past decade, having brief dalliances with success under Bret Bielema and Sam Pittman but being unable to sustain any bit of it as they slid back into mediocrity and prompted yet another coaching change.
Now they land a proven head coach who went 50–25 across six full seasons with the Tigers and led them into the Top 25 a few times. Silverfield has an excellent understanding of every facet of an organization and benefits from having NFL experience to go with his extensive ties in the college game. He’s worked for a lot of different head coaches despite being just 45. He can apply those little lessons in his second stop with much higher expectations.
The other key facet of landing Silverfield could be how he can connect with key boosters at Arkansas to start throwing their support and resources into the program. He was able to successfully convince folks at Memphis of that and benefited greatly from that kind of positioning within the American and within the Group of 5.
That’s also why, for all the positives you see in plucking Silverfield, this isn’t quite the grand slam that other moves within the SEC are. It’s no secret that he had some of the more expensive rosters to coach in the last few years and, while it’s admirable to win 29 games the last three seasons, you could also say that he met expectations and didn’t exceed them. Memphis didn’t play in the conference title game at all under Silverfield and never quite could capitalize on some of the big upsets he was able to engineer.
Arkansas is a difficult job in a conference which is unforgiving so despite plenty of positives, there are a handful of reservations even with the prospect of Silverfield likely raising the floor a ton for the Hogs.
What it means for Ryan Silverfield
It seemed like Silverfield was the forgotten man behind several of his American conference peers on this coaching carousel in terms of headlines, but landing the Arkansas job is a great move and fit. One figured he had a chance to land a bigger job at some point given the consistent results at Memphis and this seems like the perfect gig that allows him to rebuild the program on his timeline and not face undue expectations like some of the other SEC openings would place on him.
It also doesn’t hurt that he’s very familiar with the region and has done well in recruiting players and finding them out of the transfer portal. Arkansas will need to do both, and for as much as the job requires dipping into Texas and Louisiana, the ability to easily bring some of that pipeline to the Memphis and western Tennessee area should make life much easier on the Hogs’ new head coach.
Plus, as an offensive line guy taking over for an offensive line guy in Sam Pittman, it’s not like he’ll be walking into an outlandish football environment that will be a sharp contrast to what he wants and resistant to any changes.
Final Grade: B-
The Razorbacks conducted a wide-ranging and active coaching search before finally settling on Silverfield—who they know up close what he can do having a victory over Arkansas this season. He should be able to significantly raise the floor in Fayetteville, Ark., by making this a consistent bowl-bound program with the occasional ability to compete for much more every so often, too.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Grading Ryan Silverfield to Arkansas: Hire Raises Floor in Tough SEC.
