Why Silverfield Can't Do What Holtz and Nutt Did at Arkansas

Razorbacks' past coaches won big in year one at Arkansas., but this year's coach starting from a different place entirely.

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Ryan Silverfield talks to his team after the spring game at Razorback Stadium. | Brett Rojo-Imagn Images

Ryan Silverfield is walking into Fayetteville with a new title, a fresh contract and a fan base that's hoping he's the answer the Razorbacks have been chasing.

He may well be. But if you're betting on him joining the short, exclusive list of Arkansas head coaches who won big in year one, you'd better check the odds first.

Slim and none. And slim didn't show up for the conversation.

There's a reason that list is two names deep. It's Lou Holtz in 1977 and Houston Nutt in 1998 and the reason isn't complicated.

Both stepped into situations that most coaches only dream about. Silverfield doesn't have that luxury.

It's not a knock on him. It's simple arithmetic.

ESPN analyst Lou Holtz on set prior to the Arkansas Razorbacks against the Ohio State Buckeyes game for the 2011 Sugar Bowl at the Louisiana Superdome. | Matthew Emmons-Imagn Images

Holtz' Standard Nobody Talks About Enough

When Holtz arrived in Fayetteville in 1977, Frank Broyles handed him the keys to one of the finest rosters the longtime Arkansas athletic director had assembled in 19 years of coaching the Hogs.

Broyles could flat-out recruit. He built programs. Throw in a culture before everybody started using that word.

When he stepped away from coaching to focus full-time on the athletic department, he left behind a loaded cupboard.

Holtz didn't rebuild anything in year one. He turned what was already there completely loose.

The talent level was high enough that a disciplined, demanding coach with Holtz's football IQ could walk in and win immediately.

That's exactly what happened. It wasn't luck and it wasn't magic. It was a great coach getting great players right out of the gate.

That's a combination that doesn't come along often in college football and it certainly isn't what's waiting for Silverfield.

For some of us covering that team it remains the best Razorback team of all time. They had claim to the national championship as legitimate as the 1964 team

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Houston Nutt during the third quarter against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn. | Jason Parkhurst-Imagn Images

Nutt Had Head Start, Too

Houston Nutt's first year in 1998 was similarly built on a foundation someone else laid.

Danny Ford had spent his years at Arkansas doing what he'd always done — recruiting. He knew knew how to find players.

He'd proven that at Clemson, where he'd guided the Tigers to a national championship and he brought that same recruiting instinct to the Razorbacks.

The problem for Ford in Fayetteville wasn't talent. It was fire.

Whatever edge had made him a national champion seemed to have dulled by the time he followed Jack Crowe into Arkansas.

Ford could put players in the program, but somewhere along the way it appeared the juice that made him great went missing. By the time he stepped away, the roster had quality that the results on the field didn't always reflect.

Nutt walked in and got the best of that situation. He had Ford's recruits and the main thing they were lacking was a belief they could actually win games.

Combine a team in need of motivation and Houston Dale coming to town the result is going to be a lot of wins. Things sailed off the end on a couple of flukes, but they changed it.

Arazorbacks coach Ryan Silverfield at first spring practice Thursday. | Arkansas Communications

What Silverfield Is Actually Inheriting

That's the part of the comparison that matters most and gets discussed the least.

Holtz and Nutt didn't just win because they were good coaches, though they were. They won because the players already in those locker rooms gave them a chance to win fast.

Silverfield's situation is different.

He's not stepping into a roster stocked by a program-builder with two decades of recruiting relationships. You can't thank NIL and the transfer porta.

He's getting whatever the previous staff left behind, added some players that don't appear to be big-time stars and Arkansas football has spent more time searching for its footing in recent years than stockpiling future NFL talent.

Winning in year one in the SEC requires being able to have a margin for error. You need depth when injuries hit and upperclassmen who've been through battles.

It requires difference-makers at the positions that decide close games.

Building that takes time or a little luck with new guys and Silverfield's likely going to need some of that time whether the fans wants to give it to him or not.

We'll see if he got lucky with some transfers that are better than I think

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Ryan Silverfield. | Ted McClenning-allHOGS Images

The SEC Doesn't Grade on Curve

There's also the small matter of the league itself. The Hogs were in the Southwest Conference Conference in 1977. Even though it was as good as any conference in the conference, it was a different beast than today.

Even 1998 feels like ancient history compared to the arms race that SEC football has become. Every program is chasing the same elite recruits. Every staff has a portal strategy. Every fan base expects results now.

The sport has changed in ways that make early success harder for programs that aren't already sitting on Top 25 rosters.

Silverfield may be a really good coach. He may figure out the portal and surprise some people. Coaches who've been underestimated before have found ways to win.

But matching what Holtz did in 1977 or what Nutt did in 1998 would take a combination of talent, timing and fortune the history of this program says is nearly impossible to duplicate.

The bar was set high. The players who helped set it aren't around anymore.

And in college football these days, that's the part no one talks about.