FAYETTEVILLE — Remember when it seemed like Alex Golesh was going to be the next coach at Arkansas?

Reports linked the then-South Florida head coach to the Arkansas job last November, but it was Ryan Silverfield who was hired at Arkansas on Nov. 30 while Golesh was hired at Auburn.

Nearly a year after both coaches began their tenures at their current programs, they'll clash at Jordan-Hare Stadium in a game between two first-year head coaches who are both desperate for a win. Which one is more desperate probably depends on who you ask.

There may only be a one game difference between the Tigers (4-4, 2-4 SEC) and the Razorbacks (3-5, 1-4 SEC) in the conference standings, but the distance between Auburn and Arkansas feels much larger — at least, it did prior to the last two weeks.

While the Razorbacks ' lone win over a Power Four squad came against a terrible Vanderbilt team in Nashville, Auburn beat Baylor to open the season, beat Vanderbilt at home and then delivered arguably the most shocking upset of the college football season by beating Georgia in Athens on Oct. 17 to improve to 4-2.

Over the last two games, however, Auburn lost to LSU and Ole Miss by a combined score of 83-32. The stock of both Auburn and Golesh has plummeted.

With that said, it's not as if Silverfield and the Razorbacks are flying high. Give credit where credit is due: the Hogs found a way to win on the road against Vandy but looked flat in Fayetteville on Saturday in a 34-10 loss to Missouri. The Hogs, as it turned out, have not turned a corner.

With that said, a road trip to the Plains that looked incredibly difficult two weeks ago looks like a somewhat winnable game now, provided Arkansas figures out a way to stop turning the football over and shooting itself in the foot with inopportune penalties.

The Arkansas-Auburn series has been a weird one in recent years. Since the infamous 2020 game in which Bo Nix's supposed spike led to a game-winning field goal, the road team has won the last five, including the 2025 edition, which saw Hugh Freeze get his final SEC win as the Auburn HC in Fayetteville in a game Arkansas led by 11 at halftime.

The Tigers are looking for their first winning season since firing Gus Mahlzahn at the end of 2020. Arkansas is looking to get a much-needed win and stop the flow of negativity that opened right back up on Saturday after another humiliating performance.

And both teams, with their first-year head coaches who dominated the headlines a year ago are looking for a win that would make their respective debut seasons in the SEC more respectable come December.

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