The best-case scenario for Arkansas football in 2024

There's not a lot of hype going around Arkansas football these days. After a 4-8 season, Arkansas is an afterthought with Texas and Oklahoma coming to the SEC, and with teams like Georgia, the favorite for another SEC and national championship.

With no one on the national stage talking about the Hogs, fans are left to their own thoughts and opinions. And if you’ve been on social media, you've seen the vast majority aren’t high on the Razorbacks either. It seems like Arkansas is destined to miss a bowl game, but what are the chances they actually have a good season?

Offense and defensive coordinators

Bobby Petrino

Well, you can never count a team out if they have Bobby Petrino running the offense.  Historically, we’ve seen him come to Fayetteville and nearly knock off the Razorbacks with an FCS Missouri State team. His one season at Texas A&M wasn’t great, but he didn’t get to run his offense the way he wanted, and the Aggies dealt with a few quarterback injuries.

Petrino is going to use the weapons he has available, and he’ll create an offense that works for the team he has, which is something that Enos did not do last year. However, even with Enos in control of the offense, the Razorbacks were 17 points away from beating Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, and Mississippi State.

Travis Williams

As far as the defense goes, last season was a significant step up from Barry Odom's final year in Fayetteville. Part of that has to do with the depth on the defense line (thanks to coach Deke Adams), but a lot of it had to do with defensive coordinator Travis Williams’ defensive scheme.

Now, if you compare just the scores, it doesn’t look far better year-to-year. However, if you look at games like BYU and Texas A&M, many of those scores came from the opposing offense taking advantage of short fields. Special team blunders and untimely offensive turnovers contributed to the poor defensive numbers. In fact, the defense was solid until it let go of the rope in the final two games. And with 2/3 of the team not pulling their weight, it finally dragged the best unit of last year‘s team down.

If Williams can put a defensive on the field close to what they had last season, Arkansas can have a decent season. And if you think that Bobby Petrino's offense isn't worth at least two more wins than a Dan Enos offense, then you're not watching the same games as the rest of us.