Prior to the season this game was marked down as a potential highlight of 2025 if both programs could get to late September unbeaten. Well, scratch that both teams have let the college football world down (to be fair both sides are extremely close to being a combined 7-0 as well) and now we’re getting a much weirder matchup with frustrations boiling over in South Bend and Fayetteville. Notre Dame got into the win column last weekend with a big offensive performance but the defensive struggles and the Chris Ash coordinator job are still on shaky ground. Likewise, Arkansas is in a similar situation with a potent offense with a defense that has been very ineffective in back-to-back losses.
Now, the Irish and Hogs meet in Fayetteville for a 11:00 AM local kickoff.
Notre Dame (-3.5) at Arkansas
Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium
Fayetteville, AR
Date: Saturday, September 27, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM ET
TV: ABC
This matchup has big implications as we move close to October. A win and you can see either program picking things up and moving in the right direction. The losing side is really going to be facing a lot of criticism and finding it difficult to have a semblance of a successful season.
Vegas Corner
Once upon a time, Notre Dame was favored by 12.5 points in this game. This week, the line opened at -5.5 points to the blue and gold, fell further to -4 points, and then -3.5 points, before rebounding as we type to -4.5 points only to then fall back to -3.5 points. The much discussed over/under of 64.5 total points leads all college football games in Week 5.
Weather Report
Beautiful weather is on tap for this weekend. Temperatures around kickoff are expected to be around 80 degrees with light winds and humidity around 60% in the region. A reminder again for any fans visiting Fayetteville the game is kicking off at 11 AM local time.
Series History
*First Meeting*
Arkansas is 1 of 6 current power programs that Notre Dame has yet to face in football. The others include Texas Tech, UCF, Kansas State, Kentucky, and Mississippi State with reports the Irish are also looking to sign a series with War Eagle soon. Some interesting ties between Notre Dame and Arkansas:
Current Notre Dame tight end Ty Washington played for the Hogs from 2022-24.
Former 2018 recruit Luke Jones hailed from Little Rock and ended up transferring back to hometown Arkansas in 2019 while eventually playing quite a bit on the offensive line.
Lou Holtz, 8 years before coming to Notre Dame.
Running back Daniel Anderson was committed to Notre Dame out of Little Rock suburb Bryant, Arkansas but a knee injury ended up with a mutual decommit. He’s since landed at Northwestern and has 2 carries so far in 2025 during his freshman season.
Notre Dame defensive coordinator Chris Ash was in this role at Arkansas for 2013 in the first year of Bret Bielema’s tenure (they lost 9 games uhhhh), coming over with him from Wisconsin. Irish special teams coordinator Marty Biagi was a grad assistant at Arkansas early in his career.
Lou Holtz is the strongest tie between these schools. In fact, it was Holtz’ tenure with the Hogs that put him firmly on the map in college football while winning the National Coach of the Year in his first season after going 11-1 and defeating no. 2 Oklahoma 31-6 in the Orange Bowl. While he never really reached elite heights with Arkansas, he did finish a strong 60-21-2 with the program and his success didn’t go unnoticed at Notre Dame where he’d later arrive after a 2-year stop with Minnesota.
Fun Fact(s)
Frank Broyles was head coach at Arkansas (1958-1976) and athletic director (1974-2007), won the school’s only National Championship in 1964, and the National Assistant Coach of the Year Award is named after him today.
The school switched back to natural grass inside Razorback Stadium ahead of the 2019 season.
Inflatable bro looks like he’s crying.
Arkansas loves them some of their pig mascots. In addition to a live Russian boar named “Tusk” they have a regular costumed “Big Red”, a cheerleader “Sue E.”, a kid-friendly “Pork Chop”, and an inflatable mascot “Boss Hog.”
Coaching Staff
Sam Pittman is in his 6th season with Arkansas and outside of a 2-year job at the community college ranks back in 1992-93 this is his first head coaching job in college. Despite a promising 9-4 season in his second year on campus it’s mostly been disappointing for Pittman who is 32-33 overall with the Hogs and 14-29 in SEC play. Following last week’s loss to Memphis his seat is getting warm. His contract runs through the 2027 season and if the Razorbacks win fewer than 5 games this year it’ll drop his buyout down from $10 million to $7 million.
It hasn’t been happy times for Pittman in recent weeks.
Following the 2023 season, Arkansas fired offensive coordinator Dan Enos and controversially brought back former head coach Bobby Petrino to run things. The Hogs were pretty average on offense last year but are improved in 2025 at 22nd in the latest SP+ rankings, just one spot below Notre Dame.
Travis Williams has been the defensive coordinator since the 2023 season. The last 2 weeks have not been great as Arkansas surrendered a combined 73 points and are allowing 5.4 yards per play on the whole for 2025.
Pittman has overhauled his staff quite a bit over the last few years but the only new coach for this fall is Nick Perry in the secondary. He was a GA and analyst at Alabama before spending the last 4 years prior to Arkansas working with the Falcons and Seahawks in the NFL.
Portal
The internet research indicates Arkansas brought in 31 transfers this off-season. Like many opponents, they’ve used the Portal to re-work both sides of the ball. On offense, starting running back Mike Washington comes over following stops at Buffalo and New Mexico State with over 2,000 career rushing yards. Three out of the top 4 receivers this year including O’Mega Blake (Charlotte), Jalen Brown (Florida State), and Raylen Sharpe (Fresno State) are new. Blake in particular was explosive last year at Charlotte (32 receptions for 795 yards and 9 TD) and currently sits 3rd among all SEC receivers with 24 catches.
Canadian tight end Rohan Jones comes from Montana State via Maine and is having a ridiculous year with 197 yards on only 5 receptions with 2 touchdowns so far. Jaden Platt came over from Texas A&M and is no slouch either with 8 catches for 143 yards.
Jones is having a wild season so far.
Up front, the Razorbacks brought back 2 starters from 2024 and supplemented with left tackle Corey Robinson transferring in from Georgia Tech and center Caiden Kitler from UCF.
On the defensive line, Justus Boone (Florida), David Oke (Abilene Christian), and Phillip Lee (Troy) have added depth with Lee having a nice season (2.5 TFL, 1.5 sacks, 4 QBH) in 2025.
Cornerbacks Julian Neal (Stanford) and Kani Walker (Oklahoma) have grabbed starting positions, although Walker did not travel with the team to Memphis last week after suffering a concussion against Ole Miss–he’s practiced this week and is likely to suit up against the Irish. Starting nickel Jordan Young transferred in from Cincinnati, too. Safety added new starter Caleb Wooden from Auburn while Shakur Smalls (Maine) sees the field often, too.
Top Players
QB Taylen Green
Dangerous is a perfect word to describe Arkansas’ 5th year senior quarterback. Any time you see someone 6’6″ who can run and throw you take notice. After 22 starts at Boise State, Taylen Green has been productive with the Hogs producing 3,756 total yards last year and a national leading 1,551 total yards thus far in 2025. He’s an average-to-good passer (although interception prone with 28 interceptions including 4 this year already) who can be lethal as a runner. Right now, Green leads all quarterbacks in rushing yards (368) by a healthy margin.
RB Mike Washington
Despite a terrible untimely fumble (see below) Washington is having a good year after transferring to the Razorbacks. He dominated against their first 2 weaker opponents and came back down to earth the last 2 weeks (combined 135 yards) although he scored 3 times on the ground all the same. While Green carries the ball a lot, we should expect to see a heavy dose of Washington, too.
WR O’Mega Blake
Originally a recruit at South Carolina, Blake spent 3 seasons with the Gamecocks. He didn’t do much his first 2 seasons but did produce 5 catches for 86 yards at no. 4 Georgia as a redshirt sophomore. Despite a big game, he never developed much and transferred out to Charlotte for 2024. Among qualifying wideouts, he finished 2nd nationally last year with a gaudy 24.84 yards per reception average. This year, only 12 other receivers have caught more passes than Blake.
Blake has been super productive since 2024.
DE Quincy Rhodes
If the Hogs defense has been struggling, junior jumbo end Quincy Rhodes was the top recruit from Arkansas back in 2023 and has moved into a starting role this year with plenty of success. Notre Dame can barely get to the quarterback, yet Rhodes already has 5 sacks! He’s coming directly off a game against Memphis with 2 sacks and 4 total tackles for loss.
Bad Matchup
Green’s Playmaking Ability
A veteran athletic quarterback paired up with Bobby Petrino could be a big problem for this wounded Irish defense. If Arkansas’ defense had been a little better through 4 games we might be talking about them making a lot of noise in the SEC. If they limit mistakes, it’s going to be tough to stop this offense consistently. They are averaging 8.12 yards per play through 4 games and are among the top 5 nationally in most of the explosive play categories.
Good Matchup
Notre Dame’s Offensive Balance
The Hogs have given up exactly 6.79 yards per play in each of their last 2 games. Against Ole Miss, they allowed 357 passing yards and then turned around and allowed 289 rushing yards to Memphis last week. Pittman has just never got the defense straightened out and working well during his time at Arkansas. They’ve had some doozy of performances in the past (9.1 YPP and nearly 700 yards to Ole Miss last year, more than 500 yards allowed in 2 separate games from 2023, then 703 yards allowed to Ole Miss in 2022) and they aren’t showing many signs of getting better. The Irish should move the ball consistently and put up points.
Special Teams
Arkansas brought in North Texas transfer Blake Ford who spent 2022-23 with the Hogs, he was the kickoff specialist for the first 2 games but has given way to punter Devin Bale with that job. True freshman Scott Starzyk is doing the place-kicking going 2 of 4 this season, including a pair of misses from 49 and 51 yards against Ole Miss.
Backup redshirt junior running back Rodney Hill returns kicks but has only done so 3 times on the season, including just once over the last 3 games. This appears to be strategic for the offense under Petrino–they only returned 15 kickoffs in 2024, good for 108th fewest nationally.
UAB transfer Kam Shanks is in a backup receiver role for the Hogs after 62 receptions last year and leading the nation with 329 punt return yards. He’s been bottled up for 35 yards on 9 punt returns in 2025 so far, but maybe someone to not test too much.
Prediction
Arkansas is 2-2 but they experienced two brutal losses in recent weeks. They trailed Ole Miss by 6 points and wideout Jalen Brown fumbled at the opponents 25-yard line after catching a screen pass with 2 minutes remaining and trying to fight for more yards. The Hogs followed that up with running back Mike Washington fumbling on 2nd & 2 from the Memphis 7-yard line with 1:18 to play as he was reaching for the first down and trailing by just 1 point.
Ouch.
It’s hard not to think those losses and how they occurred cloud this weekend’s matchup. Especially for head coach Sam Pittman, who in addition to being on the hot seat, frankly looks kind of done with the process of trying to turn around Arkansas football. There are as many retirement rumors as firing rumors at this point.
Arkansas is doing a Stripe Out in the stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Pittman said they will be ready–and history suggests when Notre Dame comes to town that’s usually the case, especially in a first-ever meeting on the road–but I feel like there’s a decent chance Arkansas’ program is in a bad early-season state and just waiting for a freefall. CBS is reporting that Petrino is lobbying to become the interim head coach, should a change be made soon. That sounds bad!
Or maybe this is a very dangerous wounded animal, a wounded pig if you will.
The Irish should be in a more recoverable position–with a solidified head coaching position–trying to figure out what has gone wrong on defense and how to fix things. Or maybe it’s not easily recoverable at all with it being nearly October.
The problem for Notre Dame is that this is not an offense that will be easy to execute against. Taylen Green is really impressive for a college quarterback and he’ll be difficult to pressure. Notre Dame has only totaled 4 sacks this year and the Hogs have given up just 3 themselves–Green is so mobile and can quickly escape pressure with his long strides.
A fullback in a 3-point stance, have mercy.
Petrino has a history of cooking up some good gameplans and you have to think he’s salivating looking at Notre Dame’s defense to date. I’m guessing the Irish will spy Green quite a lot and try to prevent him from running all over the place. It’s probably a necessity in a game like this where the hope is Notre Dame can cause a couple interceptions in key moments but absolutely do not want Green scampering for 100 yards and picking up several first downs on his own. It’ll be super important to keep Green within the tackle box, once he gets the edge he’s very hard to bring down.
I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of talk this week about Notre Dame’s culture. I’ve never been a huge fan of this line of thinking, or at least I believe it tends to be overstated when things are going good or bad at the opposite ends for a football program. I like to zoom out and would agree that Notre Dame is the more talented team and has enough experience at winning that they should take care of business on the road versus Arkansas.
The Chris Ash era thus far.
My prediction is that Notre Dame’s lack of havoc ability (needed so, so, so badly in this type of matchup if you’re resigned to giving up yards in an offensive shootout) is going to prove too costly and the team struggles because of that in a high-scoring game. The Irish have allowed 40+ points throughout their history on 48 different occasions (once already this year!) and have won only 3 of those games. I’d also point out if Noah Burnette is still injured this game could feature a pair of freshmen kickers going against each other and Notre Dame’s Erik Schmidt did not look ready for this spotlight last week.
A win here would be huge for Notre Dame, a major pendulum swing into saving something important from this 2025 season. Arkansas looks to be teetering under Sam Pittman but a loss here for Notre Dame could really make things chaotic in South Bend with pressure amped up on Chris Ash to feverish levels. A culture win on the road for the Irish? My heart hopes so but my brain says this is a bad matchup at the wrong time.
My gut agrees.
My heart disagrees.
My head tells me a lot needs to be fixed on that defense for us to have a chance.
Yep. (Gulp.)
The one and only point in common between these schools, Coach Lou Holtz, likes to say, when you go on the road against a tough team, you better bring your defense and your kicking game.
Well, yeah.
Reading between the lines of HCMF’s presser yesterday, he just hasn’t had time to fix even some of what needs fixing. And Leonard’s status is not looking good. Another concern is that combo of their tight end, the QB run, and their WR.
42 sounds about right.
So, what do we think Noise? The buck stops here, no? When did the clock start for Freeman to “fix” things ? Let’s cut some slack for the secondary being banged up. As things stand today, consensus is ND needs to score 40 to win. I’m not sure I remember a time when that has ever been true. At best, as it stands today, this looks to be a bad miscalculation on Freeman’s part in multiple ways. Ash, the portal(DL) and game planning.
Hopefully some of this gets put to rest tomorrow. If not, we’re looking at 4+ losses. I’ll say this too, this is a pressure CJ Carr should not have to deal with.
I had the same thought re Carr. If your defense is going to give up 30+ every week, I imagine Carr is going to start forcing throws to keep moving the chains.
The clock started in the first half vs Purdue, I think. As in MF had already started worrying and trying to influence vs A&M, and last week it was clear that wasn’t enough. Yes, the secondary having no depth and losing the best guys hurt. But I’m buying Jamie U’s well-done laydown that it was Golden’s blitzing style that helped, and Ash’s lack of same has been hurting. That’s the game planning part that has hurt the most.
Yes, that’s a lot of pressure for Carr, but if our running game can really get moving, that could help, even a lot — especially to keep time of possession in our favor.
Ya I don’t feel good about this one. All the ND podcasts I listen to (Irish Illustrated, Independent, Hit & Hustle) picked ND so thank you for preventing the sweep. Seems like another Texas A&M game where the offense has to be perfect to cover for the defense and win and that’s just too much to ask of Carr and Co.