Big Picture Monday: Silverfield Won't Make Football Fun For Razorbacks This Week

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Coach Herman Boone from "Remember the Titans" once asked his best player Petey Jones if football is fun after seeing him with a grin as coaches walked in the gym.

Somehow, that's kind of how I saw Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield react in the locker room postgame at Utah with everyone pissed off after a forgettable 43-10 loss on Saturday night.

Through two weeks, football better not be fun anymore.

It better be a job. A highly paid job that most 18-22 year old's only wish they could have.

The Razorbacks roster might've cost the school $24 million to build, which ranks No. 13 among SEC teams and No. 24, according to the NIL Standard.

In comparison, Utah has the No. 41 ranked roster in terms of NIL at $20.9 million, which is No. 8 in the Big 12. That screams middle of the pack, but still drummed the Razorbacks to a tune of 441 total yards on a defense that looked lost throughout the final three quarters.

We all probably knew this was going to be a long season, but Arkansas wasn't even competitive on Saturday. That's not going to change come Saturday morning with an 11 a.m. CT kickoff with Georgia in town either.

I can sit here and put all the blame on the players for execution, especially along the line of scrimmage where linemen are getting beat on simple spin moves by Utah defenders.

There's receivers on the boundary not even attempting to block two yards downfield on tunnel screens.

On defense, one player's missed assignment on a single play can spoil execution when everyone else is doing their job.

"Every one of them [explosive plays] it was one person not doing their job," Joker Johnson said after the loss to Utah. "You need all 11 every snap of the game. You need all 11, not ten not nine. It is hard to win with 11, it is impossible to win with 10."

Utah Utes wide receiver Creed Whittemore (2) runs after a catch against Arkansas Razorbacks defensive back Jahiem Johnson (20) during the second quarter at Rice-Eccles Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Coaches have to do there part by putting their players in the best position to succeed on the field, but some of the play calls, especially on offense, were atrocious. That's being nice.

Offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey repeatedly rolling his left-handed quarterback — who already has a history with accuracy issues — to his right is coaching malpractice. It kind of makes one wonder if that was done on purpose or if he's in over his head when it comes to play-calling in a Power Conference.

Coaches in the offseason said they adapt their scheme to their players, not the other way around. But from what we saw on Saturday, that's simply not the case because they've turned a confident Jackson into someone who can't complete a pass of more than 10 yards downfield.

As Silverfield probably reminds his team often, effort is a controllable and if they weren't executing that in Week One, it wasn't fair to anyone expecting that to change in Week Two at Utah either.

The biggest picture is coming clear this week, and that's any hope of a bowl game coming this season is fool's gold. It's not happening, and that's a shame because it seemed like the purge of a losing mentality this offseason would allow fans to expect a different outcome after all.

Sometimes circumstances change and Silverfield likely thought it would be a quicker fix than he was led to believe. But when a team plays as lifeless as it did in Week Two, it's hard to believe anything will change in a span of seven days.

Georgia is going to walk into Razorback Stadium this weekend, and it's not going to really be a lot of fun. Kirby Smart's team is coming to expose every single glaring weakness Utah put on film.

Or the Razorbacks can respond with "Eyes up. All in," and leave what happened in Salt Lake City behind them and compete against the Bulldogs.

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