Arkansas quarterback battle: History says Silverfield should pick one

History hasn’t been particularly kind to Arkansas football with fall camp questions at quarterback.

New Razorback coach Ryan Silverfield may — or may not — be up to speed on that. It goes back farther than the 2000 point where the Hogs’ brass tends to act like that only included a season in 1964.

For some reason, Silverfield still wants to take the public posture of dancing around the entire issue.

After Sunday’s first scrimmage, apparently he’s going with the “no separation” theory between KJ Jackson and AJ Hill battling to be the starter against North Alabama.

HawgSports’ Trey Biddy’s analysis basically dismissed that as “coach speak,” which anybody paying attention to what folks have seen at practices.

He’s dead-on accurate. Of course, Silverfield’s not paying any attention to what we’re writing or saying in videos. Silverfield’s told us that a few times.

History says tap-dancing doesn’t win games

In the years where coaches danced around naming a starting quarterback, the record is pretty terrible. That’s not even counting when Sam Pittman used to say every job was up in the air, including KJ Jefferson at quarterback, but nobody was buying it. That includes Sam, who didn’t even sound convincing when he said it.

We don’t have a long enough history with Silverfield to know if he actually believes it or is just trying to convince himself. Or talk himself into the whole thing.

Those years of quarterback confusion are not taking into account when injuries jumped into the equation. Those can destroy the best plans of any coaching staff at that spot.

Razorback coaches have usually been fairly confident in who the No. 1 guy was in fall camp. When they waffled around, the won-lost record at the end of the year was terrible. Ask Chad Morris and look how 2018 and 2019 turned out.

Under Bret Bielema, Brandon Allen was the ride-or-die guy, then his brother Austin moved into the role without much drama. Houston Nutt usually knew who his guy was, but in fall camp he was usually pretty clear about the situation as the starter.

Maybe 2006 was the exception with all of the Mitch Mustain story starting out, but that has too many forks on that tree to even start discussing.

With Darren McFadden, though, the quarterback position required primarily being able to get the ball to McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis as often as possible.

Bobby Petrino never really had a quarterback issue, and Danny Ford was all over the place the last couple of years he was with the Hogs and had a record of 8-14 over that time. That got him fired.

Jackson looks like QB1 heading into the opener

You’re probably getting the picture by now. If Silverfield is trying to use it as motivation, maybe it’s working with Jackson and Hill. That’s probably not the case, and like nearly everybody else, my guess is Jackson will roll out first in the opener.

That doesn’t mean he’ll be there against LSU at the end of the year, but that’s a really long way away. Silverfield can keep saying all he wants publicly there’s no separation at quarterback.

How many people are buying that, though, is probably a completely different story.

Injury update

Silverfield said Sunday tight end Maddox Lassiter from Warren will miss the season with an “upper body injury.” Exactly why that phrase is what teams use these days is a little interesting, but that’s the official line.

In Lassiter’s case, though, he did have surgery earlier this week, and the Hogs finally got around to announcing it Sunday.

He’s the second player lost to a season-ending injury even before the first game is played. Freshman punter Connor Smith was ruled out a while back with a knee injury.

Considering even the punter went down with an injury before the season, that’s not exactly a positive sign of any luck changing for the Razorbacks now.

Key takeaways

• Silverfield’s “no separation” stance on KJ Jackson vs. AJ Hill fits a pattern that has historically ended badly for Arkansas teams.
• Coaches who confidently named a QB1 in fall camp (Bielema, Petrino, Nutt) fared far better than those who waffled (Morris, Pittman).
• Arkansas has already lost TE Maddox Lassiter and P Connor Smith for the season before playing a single game.