Arkansas announces season-opener vs. UAPB moved to Aug. 29

The Arkansas football season will get started a little bit earlier than planned this fall. The Razorbacks have announced that the season opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff has been moved up two days and will now be played on Aug. 29.

The matchup was originally scheduled to take place on Aug. 31. With the date change, the game will now be televised by ESPNU. It will kick off at 6:30 p.m. local time.

The opener for Arkansas will be played at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. This is the second straight Arkansas season opener that will be played in Little Rock.

However, this is the first Thursday season opener for the Razorbacks since 2017.

Arkansas is coming off of a disappointing 4-8 season under head coach Sam Pittman, who is entering his fifth season leading the Razorbacks program.

Arkansas got off to a slow start under Pittman, going 3-7 in Year 1. However, the Hogs bounced back with back-to-back winning seasons, going 9-4 in 2021 and 7-6 in 2022.

Unfortunately for the Razorbacks, they had another disappointing season in 2023. Now they will look to rebounds from that this fall.

As for UAPB, the Golden Lions struggled to a 2-9 record last season. Arkansas-Pine Bluff did end the year on a high note, knocking off Texas Southern 35-34 in its season finale.

Sam Pittman on John Calipari coming to Arkansas: ‘We hit a pretty good home run, maybe a grand slam’

While there was a little bit of football news on Friday, most of the talk around Fayetteville recently has been about the basketball program.

The Razorbacks brought in John Calipari recently, leading to plenty of excitement. Head football coach Sam Pittman recently offered his thoughts on the hire.

“Well, I live in Arkansas, so it’s got to be hard not to [follow the basketball search],” Sam Pittman said. “I believe in Hunter Yurachek. He’ll find the best guy. I guess according to everybody, we found a guy. I don’t know him [Calipari] well, but if he’s a good coach we probably hit a pretty good home run. Maybe hit a grand slam.”

This coaching hire is one of the biggest that Hunter Yurachek will make during his time at Arkansas. Given that, it was interesting how Sam Pittman described the hiring process that he underwent before he landed at Arkansas.

“It was very comfortable conversations. There wasn’t a whole lot of conversations that I had. It wasn’t like ‘Who do we play next year?’ I didn’t care. Mine was different from what I’m assuming that coach Calipari’s is, but I remember him being very easy to talk to, very forward and direct. I talked to him and interviewed with him. I didn’t talk to him the day I got hired, really. I talked to Jon Fagg until he came to the house. Then he came to the house and did all the talking. Steve Cox was there as well,” Pittman said.