Arkansas hires Memphis' Ryan Silverfield as next head coach

The Arkansas Razorbacks have found their next head coach. Per On3’s Brett McMurphy, Ryan Silverfield is taking over in Fayetteville. Arkansas confirmed the hire later on Sunday.

This comes after there had been extensive rumors about USF coach Alex Golesh taking the Arkansas job. That clearly isn’t true now, and McMurphy would note that Ryan Silverfield had always quietly been the front-runner to land the job. He was also notably recommended by several high school coaches within the state.

Now 45 years old, Silverfield has been the head coach at Memphis since 2020. During that time, he’s consistently had the Tigers performing as one of the top Group of Five teams in the country. That’s been particularly true over the past three seasons. Over the past three years, he went 29-9 at Memphis. That ties him for a Top 10 win percentage over that time.

At Memphis, Silverfield was 3-0 against USF’s Alex Golesh, who is now headed to Auburn. He was also 2-0 vs. North Texas‘ Eric Morris, who is now headed to Oklahoma State, and 1-0 vs. Iowa State‘s Matt Campbell.

In his six seasons at Memphis, Ryan Silverfield went 50-25 overall and 27-21 in American Conference play. He also led Memphis to four bowl wins, which is the most any individual coach has won in program history. In fact, he was 4-0 in bowls there, all against Power 4 opponents: Arkansas, Florida State, West Virginia, and Iowa State.

During his time there, his offenses also produced the nation’s longest streak of scoring 20 points or more in 51 straight games. The defense wasn’t a slouch either. The Tigers’ defense allowed only 23 points per game the past two seasons.

Prior to becoming the Memphis head coach, Silverfield was the team’s offensive line coach under Mike Norvell. He’s also spent seven seasons coaching in the NFL, primarily working as an assistant offensive line coach at that level. That has helped give him a background of building a front-office style structure with data-driven recruiting and pro-level player development. The hope is he can now bring that to Arkansas.

Arkansas is coming off a disastrous 2025 season. The team would finish 2-10, firing head coach Sam Pittman after just five games. That included a loss to Ryan Silverfield and Memphis. He would be replaced by offensive coordinator and former head coach Bobby Petrino, though the team failed to win a game with him as the interim and would go winless in SEC play as a result. At the time, it seemed as though he would be given the chance to win the full-time job but without the on-field success, that didn’t end up happening.

The winless season in conference play was the first time that happened to Arkansas since 2018 and 2019, both of which occurred under Chad Morris. To Sam Pittman’s credit, he did prove that Arkansas is capable of being competitive and had an AP Top 25 finish during his tenure.