Credit: Brett Rojo-Imagn Images
By Chris Marler
We continue our offseason series about one positive thing we aren’t talking enough about for each SEC team. Today’s team, the Arkansas Razorbacks.
The Defense
Arkansas has been bad the last several years, and for most of the last decade if we are being honest. I don’t expect that to change significantly in year one of a new head coach. There are pieces to the puzzle in place in Fayetteville though. Since 2022, the defense has ranked in the bottom three of the SEC every single year in points allowed. That includes last year when they were dead last allowing 33.8 ppg which was the second worst in all of Power Four.
Arkansas defense tonight pic.twitter.com/k6hZFjieyS
— Old Row Sports (@OldRowSports) March 27, 2026
That should change this year. According to John Nabors of Inside Arkansas, the defense went to the transfer portal and fully upgraded at every position. The spending spree from Arkansas’ NIL was heavily focused on football with reports that $14.5 million of the school’s $22.5 NIL revshare going to the football program. Arkansas’ portal class gave them a footprint on a national scale for the first time, maybe ever, adding players from 14 different states including several that they’ve rarely had success in from a recruiting standpoint. The Hogs brought in 42 players in this year’s portal class with 22 coming on the defensive side of the ball. Of those 22 players, 16 came from Power Four schools.
They also have the luxury of returning a potential first round draft pick off the edge in senior Quincy Rhodes. Rhodes is a former four star recruit from Little Rock, who had eight sacks and 15.5 tackles for loss a season ago. Rhodes has not only been consistently graded as a first round player in almost every way too early mock draft for the 2027 NFL Draft, he’s projected to go in the top half of the first round in most.
Arkansas DL Quincy Rhodes (#97) doing this at 6’6 275 lbs is ridiculous pic.twitter.com/IFYOWvVfzW
— Steve Letizia (@CFCBears) November 7, 2025
Will that result in Arkansas returning to form and getting back to a bowl game or a nine win season like Sam Pittman was able to accomplish in 2021? Probably not right away, but having a new coach and 42 new players from the portal on this year’s roster has certainly breathed some life into the program. That’s one thing not enough people are talking about going into the 2026 season.
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