NCAAF News

Home

Teams

Quizzes

Newsletter

Arkansas Razorback head coach Sam Pittman looks on during the first quarter against the Mississippi Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

Shootout on the cards for Arkansas, Notre Dame

Originally posted on Arkansas Razorbacks on SI
By Daniel Shi | Last updated Sep 22, 2025 2:37 AM ET

Arkansas has already participated in back-to-back shootouts in which both teams have scored more than 30 points. That, coupled with what has been seen out of Notre Dame thus far, indicates defense could be hard to come by in the Razorbacks' next game as well against the No. 22 Irish.

Taking out Arkansas' Week 1 game against an FCS opponent Alabama A&M and the Razorbacks' defense gave up an average of 416.3 yards of total offense per game. The Hogs rank 92nd nationally and second to last in the SEC.

"We haven’t played great this year yet defensively," Pittman said after the Memphis game. "We’ve got to figure out why. Is there something that we could do a little bit better? We thought we had it fixed today, but for them to have 500 yards on us, we obviously didn’t."

For all of Arkansas' troubles on defense with third-year defensive coordinator Travis Williams, the Fighting Irish are running into similar problems under first-year defensive coordinator Chris Ash.

It will be a homecoming of sorts for Ash. He was the defensive coordinator at Arkansas in 2013 for one season under former coach Bret Bielema, a staff that coach Sam Pittman was part of as the offensive line coach.

Ash's unit doesn't fare much better than the Hogs defense that has subjected Arkansas fans to so much pain. Notre Dame has allowed 32.7 points per game, higher than the Razorbacks' 29.0 (Alabama A&M omitted).

The Irish have faced three Power Four teams to the Hogs' two, but still allowed 23 points in the first half against former Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom's Purdue team that was picked to finish last in the 18-team Big Ten by the media in the preseason.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman used one specific drive to highlight where his team is lacking defensively through three games. Purdue got the ball back with 60 seconds left, down 35-16, and went 75 yards in six plays to make the score 35-23 before halftime.

"We tried cover one, cover two, cover three, cover four,” Freeman said on the last drive before half. “What happens is you start to panic and you start to say, 'Okay, this coverage isn't working. Let's try this. This isn't working. Let's try this.' And then you're doing nothing. You're doing nothing.”

The situation resembled what happened to Arkansas toward the end of the first half against Memphis. The Tigers scored on the final drive of the half to make the score 28-17.

The difference lies in that Notre Dame allowed just seven points in the second half, including keeping the Boilermakers off the board in the third quarter while the offense found the end zone three times.

"“It isn't like our guys don't know what they're doing,” Freeman said. “They know what they're doing. It's just we got to continue to execute at a higher level.”

Kickoff between Arkansas and Notre Dame is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday and will be broadcast on ABC.