Kickoff times and television info for the Dawgs’ first three games of the 2026 season were announced today. My advice? Stock up on sunscreen and start hydrating now. It’s gonna be one hot September:
Admittedly when you open the season against Tennessee State and Western Kentucky you probably shouldn’t count on the television executives to hold the primetime slot open for you. When you get the season cranking with a TSU Tiger team that went 2-10 last year in an FCS Franken-conference known as the OVC-Big South Football Association you have to realize no one but Bulldog fans is really going to be tuning in. C’est la vie.
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But however mad you may be about standing in the noon day sun of September Athens, rest assured that you’re probably not as perturbed as Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek, who took to social media to vent his frustrations at the tough hand the Razorbacks had been dealt in a quick turnaround from week 2 to their week 3 date with the Red and Black.
I understand why Yuracheck is whining. I just don’t have a lot of sympathy for him. For one, when you’ve been as bad as Arkansas has at football and you’re breaking in a new staff you have to realize you’re not going to bump FSU/Alabama or Michigan State/Notre Dame out of the prime TV slots. Yurachek can’t acknowledge his school’s placement in the SEC pecking order, so it’s up to me to do so; it’s the bottom quartile. Arkansas is in the bottom quartile of SEC football programs as a television draw.
It also occurred to me that the time for Yurachek and the Razorbacks brass to worry about this might have been before scheduling a road game in Salt Lake City. Utah is in the Mountain Time Zone, a fact well-known to 88% of Americans, none of whom apparently is Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek. When was he under the impression that the Utes play their home games? 9:00 a.m.? A 7:15 local time start for a game against a visiting Power 4 opponent isn’t exactly unprecedented.
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Will Yurachek’s threat to get in the ears of the SEC office and ESPN bear fruit? Unlikely. Moving the Arkansas/Georgia game would require moving other games, and probably puts someone else playing an early kickoff time they’d rather not. But the Razorback faithful probably expect him to raise a little cane on behalf of his team, even if it’s going to be fruitless. So I guess good on him for making a nincompoop of himself for the home folks. I’ll make a point of congratulating him when I see him sweating his tusks off in September.
Go ‘Dawgs!!!