We continue our countdown to kickoff with our series detailing one biggest concern for every SEC team heading into 2026. Today we head to Fayetteville to talk about the biggest concern for Arkansas.
Biggest Concern: Literally Everything
End of article.
(Just kidding).
Inexperience at quarterback
I kid, I kid about Arkansas needing to worry about everything heading into 2026. There is a ton of turnover. Not only do they have a brand new head coach and staff, but there are 67 new players coming into the program in year one. That includes 42 players from the transfer portal which is the most of any team in the conference and tied for third most in the country.
There are continuity concerns, and whether or not Arkansas is even devoted to Ryan Silverfield after hiring him less than a calendar year ago. Silverfield’s buyout is only $10 million in year one, and that number drops to $7.5 million if he’s fired after Dec. 31.
Still, the biggest concern is the inexperience at quarterback. This is a year of turnover and new faces at that position around the league. There will be ten teams breaking in a new signal caller in the SEC including Arkansas. The issue is not the uncharted territory or company they’ll be in with a new starting QB, it’s the lack of experience they’ll have there.
KJ Jackson and AJ Hill are expected to be the front runners for the job. Jackson has been at Arkansas for the last two seasons, and Hill followed Silverfield from Memphis. The two have a combined 79 pass attempts from a season ago. More concerning is that in their three years of college experience they have one career start combined.
There’s a lot of upside with Jackson. He played in five games a season ago and got extensive playing time against Texas despite not starting. He finished the season with three touchdowns and zero interceptions, a completion percentage over 61 percent and 8.2 yards per attempt.
How will that translate over the course of a nine game SEC schedule and a very difficult road trip to Utah in Week 2? The overhaul of the roster is nothing new to Arkansas. They’ve brought in 73 transfers in the last two seasons. The lack of experience at quarterback is new, though. In the last five years they’ve had two starting quarterbacks. Those two players combined for 60 career starts.
That’s a far cry from one that they’ll have going into 2026.
