Arkansas may be headed toward a kicking experiment.
After another shaky day from long range, Silverfield said the Razorbacks have to examine whether a two-kicker setup makes more sense moving forward. Max Gilbert has been reliable enough inside 50 yards, but the deep-ball issues keep piling up, and that’s where the conversation is turning.
Gilbert is 1-7 on field goals of 50 yards or more this season. His lone make from that distance came against Tennessee on Oct. 10, when he drilled a 55-yarder against his former team.
Outside of that, the long attempts have been a problem, and six of his seven misses this year have come from beyond 50. He is 12-13 on kicks inside 50 yards.
That split matters for an Arkansas offense that has not consistently moved the ball well enough to treat field goals as automatic points. On Saturday against Auburn, Gilbert went 3-5, with both misses coming from 50-plus. In a three-point loss, those kicks loomed large.
“Statistically, we know it’s been not what we want,” Silverfield said Saturday. “You get to the point now where we’re going to have to look moving forward whether, one, is there another kicker?
And if there’s not... those are all going to have to be to a go [for it situation]. We have to either decide, do we go for it or do we punt the football?
And so, does that mean, you know some of those third-down calls, maybe you know handoffs in order to give ourselves a chance to throw the ball instead of kick a field goal? And we’ve got to look into that, but that’s something we’ll certainly, really dive into this next week.”
The alternative is Braeden McAlister, who has the kind of leg that forces coaches to at least consider it. He handled kickoff duties earlier in the season before Gilbert took over, and he made a 60-yard field goal at Georgia State last year. He has gone 2-3 on kicks of 50-plus yards.
The tradeoff is obvious. McAlister has struggled badly from shorter range, going 0-4 in 2025 on kicks under 50 yards and missing an extra point at Georgia State last year.
Still, Silverfield said the staff is open to testing the idea in practice.
“I’ve done that in the past,” Silverfield said Monday. “That’s something we’re going to have to look at this week in practice.
It’s something that we’ve discussed. I’ve seen Max make 60-yarders in practice, we’ve seen him do it in his history.
Obviously he’s got a strong leg. You see the kickoffs.
But maybe that is something we have to look at, is McAlister a guy that can get it?
“Obviously a lot of that, we’re facing a South Carolina team that I believe has blocked eight kicks, a variety of punts and field goals and extra points, over the last six years. So is that height, velocity where we need it to be?
All of those things get factored into it. But yeah, we’ve got to look at every single thing when it comes to that.”
However Arkansas sorts it out, the need is clear. The Auburn loss showed how costly the kicking game can be when long attempts keep coming up empty.
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