SportsRatings 2014 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Arkansas Razorbacks (SEC #11; West #7) |
 #51 |
2013 Results |
AP NR USA NR | Strength:#74 Success:#97 Overall:#73 |
| Record: 3-9 | Bowl: None | ||
| 2014 Outlook |
Picks: AP NR | USA #50 | Lindy's #67 | Athlon #63 | Steele #39 | ||
| Record: 5-7 | Bowl odds: 25% Playoff odds: <1% | ||
Last year we put Arkansas 30 places lower than anyone else, and we were right. This time around some of the others are gun-shy to rank the Razorbacks too high.
| Offense 7 ret. starters |
2013 Scoring Offense: #109 (raw) #90 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2014 Projected Scoring Offense: #64 (adjusted) |
Arkansas' ground game should be powerful enough this year to at least make the offense average.
| Passing Game |
2013 Passing Rank: #118 (raw) #118 (adjusted) | 2013 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #7 |
| 2014 Projected Passing Rank: #113 (adjusted) |
2014 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #3 |
QB Brandon Allen (1,552 yards, 13 TDs, 10 int) returns along with 2 of the top 5 receivers; #1 Javontee Herndon (437 yards) is gone while #2 Hunter Henry (409) is back. Allen completed less than 50% of his passes but that doesn't really matter in this offense. The O-line protected well, plus there were few attempts so they gave up only 8 sacks. The passing game will be about the same this year, and that's by design. Brandon's brother Austin was named the backup QB.
| Rushing | 2013 Rushing Rank: #22 (raw) #17 (adjusted) | 2014 Projected Rushing Rank: #9 (adj.) |
Bret Bielema wasted no time in making Arkansas a run-first-and-run-only offense, and this year the Razorbacks should be in the top ten in adjusted rushing. Alex Collins (1,026 yards) and Jonathan Williams (900 yards) are both back. The offensive line returns three starters; two of them, Denver Kirkland and Dan Skipper, are sophomores. They also got a summer gift in the form of grad transfer Cameron Jefferson, a long time starter at guard for UNLV who bolted when APR sanctions were placed on them (the sanctions were since rescinded). The ground game—and therefore, the offense—looks stronger.
| 2013 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #66 Pass Defense per-game: #62 Per-attempt: #66 | ||
| Defense 5 ret. starters |
'13 Scoring Defense: #90 (raw) #62 (adjusted) | '13 sacks: #45 | '13 picks: #91 |
| '14 Projected Scoring Defense: #53 (adjusted) |
'14 sacks: #51 | '14 picks: #82 | |
The Arkansas defensive line loses sacks leader Chris Smith (8.5 sacks) but Trey Flowers (8.5 tackles for loss) is back. The Razorbacks had a lot of injuries at linebacker and in the secondary, playig many different players at the positions, so while they don't strictly return a lot of starters the experience is there. Safety Alan Turner was the team's #1 tackler and he is back. The defense should be healthier and therefore better this year.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Arkansas' kicking game was a strong point, but placekicker Zach Hocker (13 of 15 FG) is gone. Punter Sam Irwin-Hill (44.3 average) is back.
- Return Game: Kickoff returner Korliss Marshall (22.2 average) is back while main punt returner Javontee Herndon (7.4) is gone.
- Turnovers projection: Arkansas might see a small improvement in fumble margin (-6 last year), interceptions thrown, and picks by the defense, which could add up to a decent amount of change.
- Injury correction: The defense had above-average injury rate and that should improve.
Coaching/Recruiting 2014 Recruiting Rank: #31 2013 Recruiting Rank: #28
Bret Bielema maintain about the same level of recruiting in his 2nd year, and it's a good class by national standards (better than ~ 3/4 of all schools), and it would rank in the top half of the Big Ten. But for the SEC it's not competitive, ranking close to the bottom. Do today's high school players want to play in such a run-based offense? Maybe it will take Bielema some time to learn the new territory, but in the SEC if you're not in the top 25 in recruiting you're falling behind.
2013 Recap
Bielema's Razorback debut was good: they beat 9-4 Louisiana-Lafayette 34-14, struggled against Samford but won 31-21, and beat Southern Miss 24-3. But they lost to Rutgers 28-24 and the losses mounted, including blowouts to South Carolina (52-7) and Alabama (52-0). Their last two games were close but no cigar as they finished 0-8 in the SEC.
Last year's prediction: We were nearly alone in predicting another bad year for the Razorbacks; we demoted them to #83 and projected a 3-9 finish. In the game-by-game chart we only picked wins over Samford and Southern Miss even giving ULL the win. They might not quite have been as bad as we thought but they matched our forecast, and we were closer than the consensus which predicted a rebound year that didn't come.
2014 Outlook
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Arkansas 2014 schedule & forecast |
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| 8/30 | Sat | @ | *Auburn | 13% | L | |||
| 9/6 | Sat | vs. | Nicholls State | 100% | W | |||
| 9/13 | Sat | @ | Texas Tech | 35% | L | |||
| 9/20 | Sat | vs. | Northern Illinois | 73% | W | |||
| 9/27 | Sat | @ | *Texas A&M | 23% | L | |||
| 10/11 | Sat | vs. | *Alabama | 9% | L | |||
| 10/18 | Sat | vs. | *Georgia | 20% | L | |||
| 10/25 | Sat | vs. | UAB | 95% | W | |||
| 11/1 | Sat | @ | *Mississippi State | 20% | L | |||
| 11/15 | Sat | vs. | *LSU | 27% | L | |||
| 11/22 | Sat | vs. | *Mississippi | 26% | L | |||
| 11/28 | Fri | @ | *Missouri | 23% | L | |||
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Straight up: 3-9 Cume: 5-7 Bowl eligible: 25%
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Arkansas is a lot better this year but they're still in the SEC and that means they have a lot of tough games. Case in point, the opener at Auburn, which is a very likely loss. They get a reprieve vs. lowly Nicholls State before travelling to Texas Tech, giving the traditional rivalry a twist by making it an air vs. ground war. The air attack probably wins that one, but the Razorbacks are good enough this year to beat a Jordan-Lynch-less Northern Illinois.
Then, other than another breather vs. UAB it's the SEC schedule the rest of the way and it's possible that the Razorbacks go winless a 2nd straight time. Not likely, though, since every game save Alabama in the 20-percent plus range, meaning that any of these games could be upset wins by Arkansas. They should get at least one win in the SEC and probably two and finish 5-7 overall. Interestingly the most frequent or "mode" finish is 4-7, but it's more than 50% likely that they finish with 5 or more wins, and their "expected value" or mean is just above 4.5 wins.
The Razorbacks are probably a year or two away from being even-odds in their conference games, but this year is a big step up from last year when we had them single-digit underdogs in about half their games. It looks pretty clear that last year was the nadir of the program.
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