The 2025 Arkansas football season has gotten off to an awful start. They are 2-3 and have lost three straight games. The first two losses came to Ole Miss and Memphis heartbreakingly, but the nail in the coffin came when Notre Dame entered Arkansas and blew out the Razorbacks this past Saturday, which resulted in Sam Pittman getting fired. Bobby Petrino was named interim head coach and instantly reworked the defense.
Bobby Petrino's first order of business as the interim head coach for Arkansas football was to overhaul the way the defense looked. He dismissed defensive coordinator Travis Williams, defensive line coach Deke Adams, and defensive assistant Marcus Woodson. He gave defensive play-calling duties to Chris Wilson, who has experience as a defensive coordinator in the UFL for the Houston Gamblers over the last three seasons and for Colorado during the 2021-22 season.
Despite the lack of offensive cohesiveness over the years, he’s consistently had a strong defense with the Gamblers and Roughnecks. One of Chris’s players, safety Leon O’Neal Jr., was named to the All-UFL First Team Defense in 2025.
Wilson served as a Defensive Line coach for multiple schools, including Northeastern State, Indiana State, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Chris was also on the Eagles’ Super Bowl team and spent a few years in Philadelphia as their Defensive Line coach.
These changes on defense were necessary after the way the Razorbacks have been playing on this side of the field. It remains to be seen if they will help, but change was needed.
Petrino, 64, returned to Arkansas in 2023 as offensive coordinator after serving in several jobs. In four years as the Razorbacks' head coach, he went 34-17, including consecutive seasons with double-digit victories in 2010 and 2011.
Petrino was involved in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash in April 2012 that left him with four broken ribs. At first, he said he was riding alone, but a police report revealed a woman was riding with him. The woman turned out to be a former Arkansas athlete who was in a romantic relationship with the married Petrino. The coach had given her a job in the football program and a $20,000 gift.
That scandal resulted in Arkansas firing Petrino at the time, but Petrino has stayed relevant in college football, highlighted by helping Lamar Jackson win the Heisman Trophy in 2016.
Petrino's return as the Razorbacks' head coach represents a full-circle moment. If his changes on the defense work, he could be named the permanent head coach.
