Arkansas hiring Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield as head coach after winless SEC campaign: Sources – The New York Times

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Silverfield led Memphis to a 32-31 win over Arkansas in September. Justin Ford / Getty Images
Arkansas is hiring Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield as its next head coach, a person involved in the decision confirmed to The Athletic.
Silverfield, 45, was 50-24 in six seasons leading the Tigers. He maintained the successful program Mike Norvell left behind; Silverfield’s first game in chargw was the Cotton Bowl against Penn State that closed the 2019 season.
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The Jacksonville, Fla., native went 29-9 over his final three seasons at Memphis. His tenure also included a 32-31 victory over Arkansas in September.
Silverfield will inherit a better situation than his predecessor, Sam Pittman.
Pittman was 32-34 in more than five seasons at Arkansas before the school fired him in September amid a 2-3 start. Pittman took over a program that was 1-24 in its previous 25 SEC games, and though the Razorbacks have lost 11 consecutive SEC games, only two of the last eight came by more than one score. The lack of success in one-score games was a consistent issue for Pittman, as he finished 7-19 in those games.
Since Pittman’s firing, interim coach Bobby Petrino is 0-7, including an 0-4 mark in games decided by one possession.
Petrino, who Pittman hired as offensive coordinator after the 2023 season, was a candidate for the job and popular among some Arkansas fans after winning 29 games in his final three seasons as Arkansas head coach from 2009 to 2011 before he was fired for cause after lying about a motorcycle accident involving a female staffer.
Arkansas’ 0-7 record under Petrino snuffed out that possibility. The Razorbacks were the only winless team in SEC play this season.
They will now start fresh in trying to turn around a program that has struggled since entering the SEC. From 1954 to 1979, Arkansas won nine league titles in the Southwest Conference. Arkansas has never won the SEC since joining the league in 1992, but the Hogs reached the title game as SEC West champion three times.
In the new SEC without divisions, reaching Atlanta is more difficult than ever. Arkansas also didn’t emphasize spending big money in the transfer portal under Pittman. That issue was a major point in negotiations when athletic director Hunter Yurachek hired John Calipari away from Kentucky in April 2024 to be the men’s basketball coach.
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Arkansas fans were frustrated after Pittman’s nine-win season in 2021 dipped to seven wins a season later and four in 2023. In the new world of college football, College Football Playoff bids will be part of the measuring stick of any coach’s resume. Arkansas, though, has finished in the top 10 of the AP poll just once since 1982. Since joining the SEC in 1992, it has finished in the top 15 just three times — twice under Petrino and once under Houston Nutt.
Memphis concluded its regular season with an 8-4 record with a loss to Navy on Thanksgiving.
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