Josh Pate reacts to hire of Ryan Silverfield, 'cluster of a search' by Arkansas

Arkansas was one of several programs to name their next head coach on Sunday, as the ‘Hogs hired Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield. Considering all things about their search and the state of the program, though, Josh Pate simply wished him luck in Fayetteville.

Pate reacted to Silverfield being the hire for the Razorbacks during ‘Josh Pate’s College Football Show’ on Sunday night. He thinks, unfortunately, this was the result of “a cluster of a search” done over the last two months, with that not helped by where they were in the pecking order and missing on a couple of their top candidates. So, with that, getting someone to actually just take the gig ended up being a success for Arkansas, says Pate.

“Arkansas has a head coach. That’s the good news. It may end right there,” said Pate. “Now, it is my opinion that this was a cluster of a search. It was tough, though, because Arkansas was not in the pole position, so they didn’t have the luxury of LSU where, as soon as they walk in the room, everyone shuts up and waits for them to make their move so that they can make their move. That was not Arkansas. Arkansas was over in the on-deck circle, and they had to wait. And, I mean, they thought they had Alex Golesh, and then Golesh said no and he took the Auburn job, and that really stung them because I think they thought they had him locked up. But, the Arkansas search, if it taught us one thing? It taught us, never say it’s done until it’s done. Well, it’s done now. Ryan Silverfield is the head coach here.”

“I think you have to be thankful that someone was willing to take the job. I’m not saying that sarcastically. I really do mean that the desirability of this job was really called into question during this search. There are a couple of reasons for that, and I’ll talk about them in just a second,” Pate continued. “Thankful, though, is not how I would describe Arkansas fans right now. I told you, oh, you can be thankful. You don’t have to be thankful…Everyone feels the same way. It says it on that poster board there – God save Arkansas. And, that’s really your only hope right now. God has to intervene, busy though he may be, and say I’m going to bless Arkansas. And, boy, is it needed. It’s needed really, really bad. I hate it for them. This is an extremely passionate, extremely engaged fanbase…But, man, if you give Arkansas a winner, they’ll really be all in.”

Silverfield was among the top candidates in this cycle, namely among the ones from out of the Group of Five with several of those coming out of, and already since being hired from, the American. That’s with a record of 50-24 (.676) over the last six seasons, including 29-9 (.763) the past three, with the Tigers, who’ve had among the nation’s better offenses and serviceable defenses to pair with them, since 2020. He did so with four records of eight-plus wins, including this past one at 8-4 with, ironically, their best win arguably being a 32-21 victory at home over Arkansas, which was the second-to-last game coached by his predecessor there now in Sam Pittman.

However, the problem for Pate isn’t the hire in Silverfield. It’s how any hire will be funded or backed moving forward by Arkansas. He can be as great of a coach as he can be, and Pate still isn’t sure if it’ll end up mattering due to the donor base in Fayetteville.

“The default position here for me is that I’m very skeptical this is going to work out. Not because I don’t believe in Ryan Silverfield, per se. This is nothing against him,” said Pate. “Where is he going? If he’s going to a place that’s all in, everything is lined up, and he just has to knock over the first domino? Well then it just comes down to whether he’s a good enough football coach. At Arkansas, it’s regrettably, unfortunately, about a lot more than just that right now. So, you’ve got the desirability of the hire. How good is he? And the reality was you were never going to get what you deemed to be a grand-slam hire because, if there was a grand slam out there, one of several other better openings would have taken him. So, you had to roll the dice a little bit, and they did. And so the desirability was probably always going to be in a state of uncertainty.”

“But, the second part, the commitment of the program? That’s what everyone was talking about behind the scenes. Like, I’ve never been up for the Arkansas job, probably never will. I know people who have been, and that was the talk. And the talk is – it was put this way by someone who would know. If you got to say the word ‘if’ three or four times when it comes to how you win at Arkansas, or anywhere else, it’s probably not a great place to be right now,” Pate continued. “So, that’s a good news, bad news. The good news is the ifs exist, which means the possibility is there. If the ifs are met in the affirmative, you can be a big winner…Well, here’s the problem with that. If I go there as the head coach, I don’t control what the big, mega donor bases up there do with their money. I can try to convince them what to do with their money, but it doesn’t matter how many brands you have to flex in your backyard. If they’re not able to be leveraged by you, it doesn’t really matter. It just so happens that there’s big industry in your backyard. Like, who cares if they’re not all in on Arkansas Football?”

“Here’s the trick that you have to get past. When you’re trying to convince big-money donors, big corporations to contribute to your overall NIL efforts, but they’re not really wise to college football, the new world of college football, here’s the catch twenty-two. Even if you get them to spend money, that’s not the end of the line. That’s not the win. The win is to get them to keep spending money, or keep investing money. But, here’s the problem. When they spend it the first time, and you don’t immediately win, they ask, well, we’re paying more money, why aren’t we winning more? Well, the dirty secret is simple math actually, but it’s tough to tell a donor this. You’re not paying me five millions dollars to win more games. Your five million dollars, and everyone else’s money collectively, just went to match everybody else who’s already raising that money. We’ve got to pay a baseline just to remain competitive,” furthered Pate. “The problem is, back in the day, you didn’t have to pay that much money to win, so everyone thinks, well, since I’m paying more now than I used to, we should be winning more now than we used to. That’s the challenge right there. I don’t care if it’s an individual donor or a corporation. These are businesses and business people, and they want return on investment and there’s a dynamic in place right now that, like, you got to explain to them that that’s not how it works, per se, without saying that’s the way it works, because then they just take their money and go elsewhere.”

Again, Pate has nothing against the inherent hire of Silverfield. It’s just everything else that comes it, whether it be dollars invested into his building, or what he’ll face on the schedule just in year one, that has him concerned about what this tenure will end up being for Arkansas.

“That’s what I feel about the Ryan Silverfield hire. I would’ve felt that way about Golesh if he went up there. I’d feel that way about anyone,” said Pate. “I’d love to be proven wrong on that. But, man – at Utah, Georgia, LSU, Missouri, Tennessee, at Auburn, at Texas, at A&M, at Vandy. They play all of those games next year, by the way.”

“I wish him luck,” Pate said. “I have never met Ryan Silverfield. I’ve met a lot of people at Arkansas. I know how bad they want a winner. I hope everyone around there wants, needs, to win. I hope you need to win, because you are very, very much behind the eight ball.”