Lights on, excuses off: Inside Ryan Silverfield's all-out effort to rebuild Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas — The scrimmage started at 9:15 on a Saturday night in late August, which was the whole point.No fans. No media, save for one reporter, were allowed inside a scrimmage closed to everybody else. On the field of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium was a 121-man roster, a full crew of SEC officials flown in to throw real flags, and a first-year head coach who had decided that if his team was going to play a football game in Salt Lake City at 9:15 p.m. CT on Sept. 12, they ought to find out what their legs feel like at that hour.Ryan Silverfield walked onto the field and looked over his team as they prepared to stretch. The offense and defense were split into four teams. He named the teams Aura and Drip, made up of starters and backups."You questioned my aura," he said, "so I figured I'd use it."Previously, the teams were called Cool and Rad. Then, Arkansas posted a photograph of its new head coach on social media in July -- harsh lighting, red polo shirt, arms folded, jaw set, expression flat. The internet had a field day and decided Arkansas' Head Hog looked less like an SEC head coach than a man who sells tires. The man had no aura, they said, no drip. The post drew 1.9 million views. Silverfield has since absorbed the joke and weaponized it. That is roughly how the entire operation works around here now. Nothing gets wasted. Not a joke, not a minute, not a light bulb, not a zipper on a special teams jersey.Arkansas won two games last season. Sam Pittman was fired Sept. 28 after a 56-13 loss to Notre Dame. Offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino finished the year as interim coach, and the Razorbacks never won another game, finishing 2-10 with a 0-8 record in the SEC. Six of those losses came by six points or fewer. One of them, a 32-31 collapse in Memphis on Sept. 20 after Arkansas had led by 18, was orchestrated by the man who now runs the Razorbacks.Silverfield went 50-25 in six seasons at Memphis, won four bowl games and produced the first back-to-back 10-win seasons in that school's history. Arkansas gave him five years and $33.5 million to do something similar here, in a league where, by most available measures, he has less to work with than almost everyone else in it. The 247Sports Team Talent Composite ranks Arkansas' roster 36th nationally. It has no five-star players. Only Vanderbilt ranks lower in the SEC. Georgia, which visits Fayetteville on Sept. 19, sits at No. 1.Arkansas' schedule is the toughest in the country by some metrics. Seven of the Razorbacks' 12 opponents will open the season in the AP Top 25, including four in the top 11. In July, the SEC's media picked Arkansas to finish 16th out of 16 teams.CBS Sports surveyed more than 50 industry sources this summer about how much programs are spending to build rosters in the revenue-sharing era; Arkansas landed in the conference's bottom tier at just over $20 million. Eight programs nationally are north of $40 million. LSU, which closes Arkansas' season on Nov. 28, may be north of $50 million. Turn on the lightsThe first thing Silverfield changed at Arkansas was not the offense. It was the lighting.He walked into the football facility for the first time after taking the job in early December and found the building dim. He asked someone to turn the lights on. He was told the lights were on. After his first staff meeting, he had staffers go buy new bulbs.It reads like a gimmick until you understand that the bulbs were the opening move in an audit that has since spread well outside the football building. Silverfield met with every player when he got the job, as every coach does. Then he started meeting with donors, many of them men in their 60s and 70s, and they kept telling him the same thing: the game day experience at Razorback Stadium had to improve.He was careful about what he did with that, he said Monday, five days out from the opener."I said, well, we'll never use that excuse for our lack of success at home, first and foremost," Silverfield said. "If we win football games, generally the game day experience at home is going to be better." Still, he went and did something about it anyway.In February and March, he worked through a list of reasons Arkansas had not been good at home. Some of them were his to fix. He had to get better players (he added nearly 80 new ones to his roster) and his staff had to coach them up. He sat down with the athletic department's in-game entertainment staff, which he believes no Arkansas football coach had ever done. He asked for the music playlist for games and how the lights are utilized for celebrations."I met with game day parking to talk about how we get people in the gates faster," Silverfield said."But that stuff's important to me, because if enough people are saying that it's not good enough, I believe it's my job. And people say, 'Well, Ryan, just stick with coaching football.' Sure. But this job does not just require me to be a good football coach in between the white lines. It requires so much. And that's one of the reasons I was so attracted to this job." Arkansas upgraded its sound system, which blared loud music and crowd noise during its late-night scrimmage. "I want to get a noise complaint," Silverfield told his staff earlier in the day. The school also installed new LED stadium lights, including 40 lasers that will create custom logo projections and effects on the field.Again with the lights."Why has it been this way?" Silverfield said. "Don't tell me that's the way it's always been, because that's not good enough."If anything, Silverfield is downright obsessed and meticulous with details."As I always say, there's no such thing as little things; it's all big things," Silverfield told his staff on a Sunday morning in late August as they reviewed scrimmage film. "We can't lose that as we go along." The list of things that qualify as big, in Silverfield's accounting: a defensive lineman's messy locker, which went up on a screen in a full team meeting so that his 120 teammates could hold him accountable. Whether players know the name of a student manager. Whether a receiver hands the ball to the official after a touchdown or celebrates first. Whether a player is hitting his maximum "speed" load every week. Whether the strength staff's GPS data says the roster is rested heading into game week, and faster in August than it was a year ago under the previous coaching staff.The team certainly is faster, according to Catapult data presented to the team after the scrimmage. Arkansas' average team speed is 20.93 mph. In 2025, 14 players hit 20 mph or better. This August, 25 have. In 2025, five players hit 22 mph. This August, 12 have.That's what Silverfield wants after gutting and restocking the roster in a single offseason. "You know, how hard is that?" he said. "But it's been kind of fun."Preparing to surprise the worldSaturday's afternoon meetings began at 4:45 p.m. in a meeting room connected to Silverfield's office, with the scrimmage script for that upcoming night on the screen."We don't have to get crazy on the calls," Silverfield told his assistants. "Let's see who can play football."At 5 p.m., he met with a 17-player leadership council. The players brought him a list of concerns and suggestions. Silverfield told them he wanted more energy on the sideline during scrimmages. One player wanted to keep the competition period early in Tuesday practices, when the starters go against each other, supercharging the rest of practice. Someone wanted another shift-weight chair for the weight room. Silverfield told him one had already been ordered. Somebody asked if the team could have food from a certain restaurant delivered before games. Silverfield killed that one. That was last year. Too many players opted for DoorDash deliveries the night before games at the team hotel.Players asked if they would receive hydrating IVs -- a new addition to their routine -- the night before games. Silverfield tells them the players will instead receive IVs the day of the game. His sports science team found it works best to do it in the mornings before games rather than the night before.Before the meeting broke, he left the group with a line he clearly meant to travel back through the locker room."The world is in for a pleasant f***ing surprise when we hit them in the mouth."At 6:45 p.m., the quarterbacks filed into a small room, maybe 16 feet by 16 feet, with two rows of tables. The battle for the starting job between KJ Jackson, last season's backup at Arkansas, and AJ Hill, who followed Silverfield from Memphis, was in its twilight. After tonight's scrimmage, a decision would be made. Offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey explained from the back of the room what the night would entail. This was a situational scrimmage, not the free-for-all of the first one. The ones and twos would get 20 to 30 plays and exactly one normal drive, compared with the 16 normal drives they got in the first scrimmage of preseason camp. Everything else would be a two-minute drill, a red-zone rep, an end-game situation with a specific time on the clock and a specific deficit.Then Cramsey went around the room and asked each quarterback which plays he liked best, so he could mark them on his call sheet for the night."Lead, be under control," Cramsey told them as they stood up. "Completions, completions, completions."At 7:29 p.m., Silverfield walked into the team meeting room."Eyes up," he said."All in," the room answered in unison.He started with the defensive lineman's messy locker. Then he put on a clip of a Utah player dropping the football before crossing the goal line against Oregon in 2014 and told his team not to be that guy. Then a slide came up that said KNOW YOUR MANAGERS, with a name on it: Maddux Rabun. Silverfield wanted his players to know the people who stay in the building for hours after everyone leaves, washing uniforms and resetting the place for the morning.Then he introduced the SEC officiating crew that would work the scrimmage, and the officials ran a presentation on this year's rule changes, complete with film of plays that were legal a season ago and are not anymore -- and the gray areas in between. Players asked questions. Turns out, the tackle box for a quarterback runs backward forever. "I didn't even know that," Cramsey told his quarterbacks the next day.Ninety minutes later, they were on the field.Aura vs. DripBy any honest measure, it was a mess and a success.Running back Cam Settles was in a boot and unavailable. Defensive lineman Keiundre Johnson was out and running on an antigravity treadmill in rehab, with the staff hoping to have him back on the ground within two weeks and in a game around Oct. 1. Defensive lineman Quincy Rhodes, the Razorbacks' most productive returning pass rusher, sat out to rest an injury. Sutton Smith, the Memphis transfer running back, was cleared to go.KJ Jackson took the first team out for the first possession and went three-and-out. He fumbled a snap on second down for a 1-yard loss. AJ Hill led the second team and threw an interception on the fifth play.Jackson came back and drove the first offense 70 yards for a touchdown, hitting CJ Brown at the end of the drive, and the defense came off the field furious because somebody on the field had yelled "huddle," and the defense got confused. Defensive back Joker Johnson was still relitigating it on the sideline minutes later, explaining to anyone who would listen exactly what he had heard and why he had done what he did.Later, Smith whiffed on a punt return during a special teams drill.Hank Hendrix, the freshman quarterback who reclassified to enroll at Arkansas a year early, threw a touchdown pass to running back TJ Hodges."Good s***, 1-4!" Jackson shouted from the sideline.Hill threw another interception, this one to Khmori House, the North Carolina transfer that Arkansas has moved to nickel, who took it 40 yards the other way for a touchdown."House call! House call!" House yelled, bouncing back to the bench.Jackson threw an interception on the first play of his next possession to Colorado transfer Carter Stoutmire, who finished the night with two picks.Then Jackson threw a 68-yard touchdown to Chris Marshall, the Boise State transfer, who would catch a second touchdown before the night was over -- that one from Hill.The most interesting moments were the end-game situations, which were the real reason everybody was out there at 10 o'clock trying to figure out who the starting quarterback would be.Twenty-two seconds left: Jackson found Brown for 32 yards to the 14-yard line, and the offense kicked a field goal with three seconds on the clock to take a lead.Fifty-two seconds left: Hill's drive marched, and then he uncorked a beautiful deep ball to Jamari Hawkins, who was gone and alone. He dropped it, and the defense held.One minute, two seconds left: Hill threw for 35 yards, and the second-team kicker missed a 50-yard field goal.By the time the 104-play scrimmage ended, there were four turnovers -- three interceptions, one returned for a touchdown, plus a fumble recovery.Silverfield gathered them at midfield."Too many sloppy things," he said. "It's not all bad, but each of us have to look in the mirror."They walked to the locker room a little after 11:15 p.m.Cue the filmAt 9:01 the next morning, 16 people, including the head coach, sat down in the offensive staff room to watch what they had done.Country music played underneath the conversation, a mix of 1990s classics and modern stuff. Alan Jackson's "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow" came on twice.Silverfield opened with a confession about his post-scrimmage meal late Saturday night: chicken from Slim Chickens. It would have been fine, perhaps, if he'd had his morning run to burn the extra calories, but he was in the office by 5:30 a.m. instead. "I couldn't avoid it," he said. "I crushed the whole box."Then they went to work, and the work was almost entirely about things that would never appear in a box score. They focused on player assignments and technique, poring over film, rewinding and reversing film ad nauseam for 90 minutes.Arkansas head coach Ryan Silverfield, flanked by members of his offensive staff, watches film from a preseason scrimmage on Aug. 23, 2026. Brandon Marcello, CBS Sports Co-offensive line coach Jeff Myers noted that when the crowd noise was pumped in, his unit stopped standing on the ball. For some reason, he said, they lined up about two yards off it. How third- and fourth-teamers performed was just as important as the starters. They liked what they saw from offensive lineman Josiah Clemons, who redshirted at Memphis last season."Could Big Joe play right?" Cramsey asked, meaning right guard. "He's got a lot of football left to play, too."Marshall ran what one coach called a phenomenal route. On Brown's touchdown, they ran a scissors concept, and the angle route hit perfectly on time."Is that CJ again?" a coach said. "F***ng phenomenal."Hawkins' drop came up. Silverfield muttered."Gotta have it."House's pick-6 went up on the screen. Cramsey groaned at his quarterback."Mercy, mercy," Cramsey said. "Can't have it, AJ. Never."But Silverfield was looking at something else. He asked the student manager to rewind it and cue up the overhead angle. And there it was: House switching the ball from one hand to the other, and very nearly dropping it before he crossed the goal line.That was precisely the play Silverfield had shown the entire team on video: a Utah player, roughly 14 hours earlier, celebrating a touchdown reception too early, dropping the ball before the goal line, and an Oregon player returning it the other way for a touchdown to tie the game."Maybe we should show some f***ing videos again," Silverfield said.The rest of the film was a catalog of the same species of detail. Running back Jasper Parker broke through the line and made a tackler miss, and Cramsey narrated it like a coaching point. "Follow the rules of the offense. Make one guy miss." Hill overthrew Jelani Watkins, a track sprinter with the second-fastest 60-meter sprint in school history, which the room found nearly impossible to believe. "That's trusting speed right here," Cramsey said of the overthrown ball. Hawkins scored on a handoff out of orbit motion, and running backs coach David Johnson called it: "After that drop, you weren't going to tackle him." There was a double-pass touchdown thrown by Monte Harrison, the 31-year-old former major league outfielder who walked on here in 2024, to Hill.The staff, it should be said, loves Hill. They had already decided he was not going to be the starter, and they still stopped the film to admire him scrambling for the sideline to keep an end-game drive alive in the last minute. They would announce Jackson as the starter over Hill later that day."I'm anxious to see him some day," Cramsey said.And Arkansas is still trying to understand a false start flag in the scrimmage.Center Caden Kitler believed defensive tackle David Oke was offside, so he slapped Oke on the side of the helmet -- a common reaction among many linemen in practice. The offensive staff laughed at the tape. The flag, though, went against the offense. Arkansas submitted the play to the SEC for clarification. Not to complain. Just to know.The officials had already explained it to Silverfield on the field Saturday night, and he relayed it to the room Sunday: if the center slaps the defensive lineman before the flag comes out for offside, the crew is going to assume the defender had time to work his way back into his stance and was onside. What they want is for the center to come out of his stance instead.From now on, he said, no more slapping the helmet.Even if it did elicit some welcome levity in the room.And the quarterback is …Arkansas quarterback KJ Jackson listens to offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey as the Razorbacks' quarterbacks watch film from their preseason scrimmage. Brandon Marcello, CBS Sports At 11:28 a.m., Cramsey put up the day's depth chart for the offensive staff to see.KJ Jackson was above AJ Hill, as expected. Jackson, a left-handed junior who signed with Arkansas out of high school and survived the coaching change, would officially be named the starter later that day.Both quarterbacks were nearly even on normal drives, but in situational possessions and in surprise circumstances that coaches threw at them throughout preseason camp, Jackson showed a better understanding of the offense and its safety valves and better control of his teammates. Simply put, the offense was more successful.The room where the quarterbacks study film is not built for drama. The first- and second-team quarterbacks sit at the front of the room. In two days of meetings, Jackson is as attentive as any of the five QBs. He is almost always turned in his seat, squared up to whichever coach is talking from the back of the room. When the film of his fumbled snap came up Sunday afternoon, he shook his head at the screen before the ball was even snapped, because he recognized the formation.Cramsey spent a chunk of that meeting breaking down his quarterbacks' tendencies, never once mentioning the end of the quarterback battle. It was all business, with no minutes to waste."You slide to your eyes, sometimes a little too much," he told Jackson.The way Arkansas handled the decision itself says a fair amount about how Silverfield intends to run this place. There was no team announcement. No date circled on a calendar. Cramsey wanted to tell both quarterbacks himself, one-on-one, before anyone else in the building knew -- even though many had already made educated guesses based on their performance in practice.Cramsey told them midday Sunday, after the staff had finished studying the film. Silverfield followed up with both.Cramsey knew Hill would be disappointed, and he expected his former Memphis QB to have a rough practice that night. He accepted that in advance. The team had Monday off, a buffer before preparations for the season opener against North Alabama began."When he shows up Tuesday, he needs to have his mind right," Cramsey told the offensive staff Sunday morning."And I understand, right?" Silverfield said later. "You're talking about a 19-year-old who just got told that the job wasn't his, and that's hard to take. I don't care if you're trying to get a job as a door greeter."He's worked his ass off to put himself in the position to even compete for the starting job, and he's certainly capable. To his credit, he's a pro, and he's gonna support KJ, and if his number gets called, he'll be ready to go in. And I told him, prepare like he's a starter all the time."Hill went out that night and had a good practice, Silverfield said. He led. He got onto guys.Fourteen goalsDefensive coordinator Ron Roberts runs his meetings off a scoreboard he made after scrimmages and games. Arkansas' defense has 14 goals it grades itself against.Win the game. Hold the opponent under 19 points. Allow 2.6 yards or fewer per rush. Get off the field on third and fourth down 73% of the time. Win the turnover margin by two. A havoc rate of 28%. Fewer than seven explosive plays, defined as a run of 12-plus or a pass of 16-plus. Five yards per pass attempt. Under eight yards per completion. A red-zone conversion rate of 42% with no touchdowns allowed. On first down, three yards or fewer per carry and 60% completions. One penalty, or 30 total penalty yards. No plays of 25 yards or more.Arkansas hit about half of them in the scrimmage that Saturday.The run defense held up: 2.4 yards per carry, and 2.4 on first down. Third and fourth down held up. There were four takeaways: three interceptions and a fumble recovery. They held the offense to zero touchdowns on four trips inside the red zone. The rest of it didn't hit the mark. Nine explosive plays instead of seven. Three plays of 25-plus yards, all passes, for 127 yards. Seven yards per attempt, 12 per completion, 31 of 53 for 372 yards. Five penalties for 55 yards. A havoc rate of 21%, built off one fumble recovery, three interceptions, seven pass breakups, four quarterback pressures, eight sacks and three tackles for loss.Still, the number Roberts cared most about moved in the right direction. Arkansas cut its explosive plays allowed from 17 in the first scrimmage to nine in the second.He wasn't in a celebratory mood when he turned on the film. On Hawkins' drop on a would-be touchdown pass, Roberts pointed to defensive back Tay Lockett for aborting his coverage and jumping underneath. He was unhappy with the alignment depth in Cover 2, telling his group that 18 to 22 yards off the ball is the "honey spot."Arkansas defensive coordinator Ron Roberts prepares to review film with his players Aug. 23, 2026. Brandon Marcello, CBS Sports And then Jackson's touchdown to Marshall down the sideline came up. A corner let the receiver get a clean release, and then a safety made a half-hearted attempt at a tackle. Roberts stopped the tape."I don't know what to say about that," he said. "Unless you're trying to get both of us fired, because this is what gets DCs fired. This is what gets a defensive coordinator fired."The most heated meeting of the two days, though, was with the defensive backs, who stayed behind for a position meeting after Roberts ran through the film.Secondary coach Deron Wilson opened by praising Stoutmire, who had two interceptions in the scrimmage. Then he spent the rest of it taking his group apart, technique by technique, rep by rep. The passion and speed never let up, and he only went silent to allow moments to breathe, allowing him to hammer home another point with a sudden vocal burst."Get this s*** fixed!" he yelled near the end of the meeting.A NASCAR pit crewThe staff's own recap of the scrimmage covered communication on special teams, tackling angles, four turnovers and the fact that the officiating crew's presence had genuinely helped. They also talked zipper.Arkansas struggled to put the yellow special-teams jerseys on and off quickly enough. Roberts brought it up because a Mike linebacker missed three series because of the pace of the scrimmage."We were told we could cut the sleeves and we could crop them and make the zippers, so it may be a little faster," special teams coordinator Chad Lunsford said. "It's definitely a concern right now. We've got to have a NASCAR pit crew for practice."Silverfield played out the nightmare."Ahh, zipper's stuck. Now 67 is out there at safety."Head athletic trainer Vince Blankenship gave the injury report next. There was a lot of it."It's packed down there," Blankenship said of the training room.Settles had gotten a run in the pool and remained day to day, but was expected back for the opener. Running back Kevin Young had a groin strain. There were others.Head strength coach Noah Franklin followed with sports science numbers, including the one on Smith, the transfer running back Arkansas needs."Sutton was able to get up, touch right under 85 percent of that borderline," Franklin said. "High-speed yardage, we'll press him into that this week, but he's definitely trending in the right direction."No sugarcoatingBy 3:45 p.m. Sunday, the players were back in the team room, and Silverfield's tone had changed from the night before."We all have to have a sense of urgency," he said. "That doesn't mean it was all bad, but we have to have a sense of urgency to get better. You can sit there and say, ahh, it's not game week. Bulls***. The game is today."He went after the leadership next, specifically targeting players who volunteer to lead, only to complain later."Quit complaining. It's going to take all 121 of us, all 200 people in the building," he said. "If you can't stand up with your f***ing eyes open, then get out of this meeting. I'm done with the bulls***, guys. I'm not going to sugarcoat things anymore. I feel like I sugarcoat s***. Now, I can be the nicest guy in the world as long as we do our jobs. If we all do our jobs, we're going to have a hell of a season."He put Marshall's first touchdown catch on the screen. He celebrated a little too hard. "I wish the refs threw a flag on you," Silverfield said. "Give the ball to the ref and go celebrate with your teammates. If you get a 15-yard penalty, it's not just about you; it's about the entire program. If you get a 15-yard penalty for something you do selfishly, for something we've talked about 1,000 times, that's when your ass just won't play."Then he put up the play that elicited gasps and cross-chatter in the room: House nearly dropping the football before crossing the goal line on his interception return for a touchdown. It went unnoticed during the scrimmage, but when it popped up on the screen, the players immediately realized House had done exactly what they saw the day before on that same screen from a Utah game 12 years ago."When you saw this, were you almost sick to your stomach?" Silverfield inquired.From the seats, House answered him."I was.""You make the pick-6, you may be on SportsCenter," Silverfield said. "But guess what else? You don't want to be on SportsCenter's Not Top 10."Grip the ball, run to the back of the end zone, and hand it to the official, he told them. Every time. Arkansas' strength coach came up next to the front of the room with a slideshow breaking down the team's speed and a 21-day rolling workload chart, a heat map showing the players cooling off as camp winds down, which is exactly what the staff wants to see three weeks out from a season."High-speed yards, from a performance standpoint, are the most important thing you guys are doing in the season," Franklin told them. Every player has a number of full-sprint yards he has to hit each week. If he hits it in a game, he does not have to hit it in practice."Coach is going to take care of you," Franklin said. "You just have to trust the process."Silverfield walked up. "It's all about long-term and keeping us healthy and hitting our maximums on Saturdays throughout the season."Practice started at 4:15 p.m. It was a light one by design, with only helmets and shells: a walkthrough for corrections, two-minute work for both sides, and the special teams install. Silverfield's units are called special forces. The mantra is one shot, one kill. They installed onside kicks and the hands team, running it against the backups, whom the staff calls the job takers.They put crowd noise through the speakers for the situational period at the end.The best moment of the afternoon belonged to Charlie Collins, a Jack hybrid player along the defensive line who the staff thinks needs to add weight, and who contorted his body on a screen route to pick off a pass."I didn't know you had that in you, Charlie Collins," a support staffer called out.Defensive line coach Landius Wilkerson answered for him."He didn't know it either."The loser mentalityArkansas coach Ryan Silverfield addresses his team following a practice Aug. 23, 2026. Brandon Marcello, CBS Sports Silverfield knows what the projections say about him and his Razorbacks. Last place in the SEC. One of the least-funded rosters in the conference."Everybody's entitled to their opinion," he said. "I also think it's my job, one, to be realistic. But two, I've got so much confidence and belief in everybody."I think about some of the times at Memphis when we'd go against these Power Four teams, which no one gave us a shot at, and you just keep believing. That's kind of what I want this team to be, regardless of how talented we are. And I think we're talented enough."Silverfield was 5-2 against the power conferences at Memphis, beating Iowa State, Mississippi State, Florida State, West Virginia and Arkansas. The American Conference has become a haven for future coaches on the big stages. Four head coaches, including Silverfield, were hired into power jobs this offseason: Auburn's Alex Golesh (USF) and Florida's Jon Sumrall (Tulane) joined the SEC, and North Texas' Eric Morris was hired at Oklahoma State in the Big 12. The media viewed those three as great hires. Silverfield, by contrast, underwhelmed the national voices.Silverfield, by the way, went 5-1 against those three coaches.Perhaps it's because Silverfield, despite the success at Memphis, never won the conference title in his seven seasons leading the program, one of the richest in the Group of Six, or that he took over an Arkansas program that has more winless SEC records (four) than winning records (one) over the last 14 seasons."It's no secret that we haven't been where we need to be, but we're making strides in the right direction," Silverfield said. "The biggest thing since I've gotten here is I'll take on the task of making sure there's this thing called alignment. In order for us to have success in the football program, everybody's got to be on the same page, from the development team to the athletic director to the system president to the chancellor to the Board of Trustees to the donors."Are we where we need to be? No. But I'll take it on. And listen, I'll give credit to the people in the administration and the development team. Everybody's working hard to try to get it to where it needs to be. But year one, it is what it is. I don't make excuses. There are many explanations. I took this job with a decent understanding of where we were, and I'm thrilled I did. It's just better opportunities to raise the bar and to exceed the expectations and set new ones."Asked how long a turnaround takes at Arkansas, Silverfield went to the joke first."Hopefully, we get it done in 200 days," he said.Then the real answer."We know there are certain things that have to be changed around here. The basics were getting rid of that loser mentality and changing the culture, and then education. Just measuring the steps. This is why we have to do things. This is why this needs to look this way. And it's not always financially driven. Sometimes it's just the way we work and the way we act and the way we talk to each other and go about our business on the day-to-day."That phrase, loser mentality, is one he has used since his first week on the job, and it is not aimed at the players who lost 10 games last fall. It is the private version of what he echoes in public about the parking on game days and the light bulbs in the facility."The first couple days here I told them that we've got to get rid of this loser mentality," he said. "And a lot of that is still trying to get anybody associated with this, and fans, to understand. Listen, the past is the past. I have a lot of respect for everything that occurred in the past, especially the rich history of great players and traditions, but to say that's how we've always done it around here, I think that's a loser mentality, and that will allow this recent cycle of failures to continue to repeat itself."We're not gonna talk about that. We're not gonna talk about how hard things are. We're not gonna talk about what we don't have. We're gonna talk about what we do have and what we're gonna continue to get."He does not want the underdog tag to be Arkansas' fuel, either, which is a strange position for a coach whose team was picked dead last in its league."They don't need to play motivated, but they need to play with the understanding, hey, this is what we do," Silverfield said. "Because motivation is temporary. If we go around with a chip on our shoulder, that's great. But that shouldn't get you through life. It's just the idea of lining up and really working your ass off and proving yourselves -- not to prove everybody else wrong, just go do it for yourselves, for each other."Behind closed doors, though, in a staff meeting where no player could hear him, he had put it a different way.Let's go shock the f***ing world."I know that most people are gonna judge us just by wins and losses," he said later. "But I hope the product they see on the field, they'll say, man, they got it turned around, it's heading in the right direction, regardless of what the final results may be."Two days after opening the program to a reporter, Silverfield caught himself before he got off the phone. The last thing he said was perhaps the least rehearsed thing he said all week. Failure, he said, is just not possible for him."Over my dead body. We're gonna get this thing right."How's that for aura?