Arkansas drew the kind of preseason respect that can sting a little more than a simple last-place prediction. The Razorbacks were slotted 16th in the SEC media poll, and they landed there by a huge gap - 205 points behind 15th-place Mississippi State.
That’s the number that set off Chuck Barrett.
On Monday’s edition of "The Chuck and Bo Show," the Voice of the Razorbacks made it clear he didn’t understand why Arkansas was separated so sharply from the Bulldogs and Kentucky.
"Here's the part about Arkansas that I'm just not understanding yet," Barrett said. "The wide margin part, Arkansas finishing so far behind Mississippi State and Kentucky.
What makes Mississippi State so much better than Arkansas? What makes first-year coach Will Stein and Kentucky a better team than the Razorbacks?"
The surprise wasn’t that Arkansas ended up last. After a 2-10 season in 2025 and with first-year head coach Ryan Silverfield taking over, the Hogs were always going to face skepticism. Silverfield has said last season won’t carry over to this one, but the preseason voters clearly weren’t ready to buy in.
What raised eyebrows was the size of the gap, especially with Mississippi State and Kentucky sitting so far ahead of Arkansas on so many ballots.
Mississippi State went 2-10 in 2024 and 5-8 in 2025 under Jeff Lebby, and its lone SEC win across those two seasons came against a 2-6 Arkansas team in Fayetteville last fall. The Bulldogs and Razorbacks won’t meet this season, but Barrett’s point was hard to miss: it’s not obvious Mississippi State should be viewed as that much better than Arkansas, if better at all.
Kentucky’s case wasn’t much stronger. The Wildcats finished 4-8 in 2024 and 5-7 in 2025, with only three combined SEC wins over that stretch.
That led to the firing of Mark Stoops. Like Arkansas, Kentucky is also breaking in a new setup, which at least gives the Wildcats the same kind of benefit-of-the-doubt argument that Silverfield and the Razorbacks can make.
Barrett also pointed to how other first-year SEC coaches were treated in the poll.
"You look at the first-year coaches [in the SEC], you look at the guys that Silverfield's been compared to, Sumrall at Florida, picked ninth in the league," Barrett said. "Golesh, picked 12th in the league.
Stein, picked 14th in the league. And then Arkansas and Silverfield picked last in the league."
There’s no mystery about the message Arkansas received. The only real answer now is on the field, where Silverfield and the Razorbacks can start changing the conversation in 2026 by winning enough games to make next year’s preseason ballot look a lot different.
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