Arkansas quarterback rotation failed in 2019 and failed again Saturday

Arkansas fans don’t need a history lesson on quarterback confusion.

They’ve lived it. Recently enough that an awful lot of fans remember it way too vividly.

In 2018 and 2019, the Razorbacks kept the position muddy, and the results were plain. They went 4-20 over those two seasons and didn’t win a single SEC game.

The rotating door of players was numerous under Chad Morris. One of them, Ty Storey, transferred to Western Kentucky and came back a year later to beat the brakes off the Hogs and seal Morris’ firing.

Injuries have forced the issue at times. Coaches’ choices have forced it at others.

The Hogs’ history over the last 60-plus years says the cause doesn’t matter much, because the ending usually looks the same. A shuffle starts as a reasonable idea and turns into a season-long question mark.

Saturday added a new chapter. Arkansas lost 45-17 to No. 2 Georgia while sharing the job between KJ Jackson and AJ Hill. The offense needed a spark and never found one.

Jackson opened at quarterback and played two drives. Hill took over from there.

Neither passer got much help. The ground game never took hold, and dropped passes at big moments made it worse.

That’s the trouble with a split. When an offense sputters, nobody’s sure who to blame, and neither passer gets a full afternoon to settle in.

Every stalled drive invites the same question about who should be on the field.

Silverfield says plan set on Monday

Coach Ryan Silverfield said the staff made the call on Monday. Jackson would get two series, then Hill would get the next two, and a decision would follow.

The idea, he explained, was to make both players comfortable. Coaches built the call sheet around what each one reads and runs best.

Roughly 20 of Saturday’s calls were new to Arkansas, he said, and the results were mixed.

Silverfield said coaches must put the passers in better spots. He also said the players must make better choices with the ball.

That’s plenty of new material for one game. It’s also a big ask for two players who are trading snaps.

A quarterback who plays two series, then sits, doesn’t get much chance to find a groove. Rhythm comes from repetition, and a split cuts the repetition in half.

The running game was the bigger hole Saturday. Still, the two-quarterback plan didn’t fix anything, and it hasn’t in the past. Too many moving parts can hurt a team that needs the basics to work first.

Run game gave passers no help

The Hogs finished with 300 total yards. Of those, 283 were passing yards, which leaves only 17 on the ground.

That’s a lopsided mix, and it puts heavy pressure on whoever’s throwing.

It’s the third straight game the ground attack has barely shown up. Deep into the third period, Georgia’s rushing total sat at 254 yards. The Razorbacks’ sat at one.

Without a push up front, the passers were left to throw their way out of trouble.

Silverfield said the mid-zone runs never gained traction and the inside-zone carries were stopped at the line.

He said he’d own the job of finding better ideas, and he added that the offensive line and the receivers must block better.

In his career his teams have run the ball well, he said, even against crowded fronts, though not against SEC opponents every week.

One player did stand out. Chris Marshall turned 10 targets into seven catches and 104 yards, or 14.9 per catch, and he made a one-handed grab just ahead of the break.

Silverfield called him a bright spot and said Marshall was hard on himself in the locker room over one drop.

Next up is Tulsa. The game starts at 7 p.m. Saturday, with streaming on SEC Network+.

Silverfield hasn’t decided if the rotation returns.

“I don’t want to play the quarterback carousel game,” he said, but he’d alternate if that gives the team its best chance to win.

He should skip the alternating. Saturday’s film and the muddled seasons of 2018 and 2019 point the same direction.

Pick one quarterback and let him play. Give him the game plan and a real chance to grow.