Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek said in a statement Wednesday he is “extremely concerned and displeased” with the Razorbacks’ newly released kickoff times for this season’s Week 2 and Week 3 games, denouncing them as demonstrating a clear “neglect for the well-being of college athletes” and asking that the SEC and ESPN alter their schedule.

“The focus must be on the well-being of the game’s participants — not the bottom line of our media partner,” Yurachek said.

Arkansas’ game at Utah on Sept. 12 was announced as a 9:15 p.m. CT kickoff, and its SEC opener the following Saturday at home against Georgia was set for 11 a.m. CT. Yurachek said the team likely won’t return to campus from Salt Lake City until around 6 a.m. on Sunday morning.

“The assigned schedule will cost our student-athletes nearly a full day of rest and recovery that they would otherwise have available to them,” Yurachek said. “This is not simply a competitive disadvantage — it is a genuine welfare issue for the young men who represent our program and contribute greatly to the bottom line of our television partners.”

Yurachek, who chairs the 13-member College Football Playoff committee and appeared on ESPN regularly last November to discuss the CFP rankings after replacing former Baylor AD Mack Rhoades, released the statement in response to Wednesday’s announcement of a host of early-season kickoff times. Arkansas begins its season Sept. 5 at home against North Alabama. Last season, the Razorbacks were the SEC’s only team to go winless in conference play, finishing 2-10 overall.

Yurachek called the slotting of Arkansas’ first two Power 4 matchups of the year “unacceptable.”

“I am confident that there are not many other programs in the SEC that would be placed in a similar position, and I will not quietly accept it for our program,” he said.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Wednesday evening the “squeeze” between the games was “not something I’m thrilled about either” but that television partners have autonomy to schedule games as they desire as part of the 10-year television deal that the conference signed in 2020 and runs from the 2024 season through the 2033 season.

“We do delegate that authority as part of our TV contracts,” he said, adding that the conference offers input to partners.

Sankey added that the issue had been raised with ESPN before Wednesday’s announcement.

College football’s lucrative television deals come at the price of schools ceding control of their kickoff times to media partners. The SEC’s deal with ESPN pays the conference $300 million annually.

Kickoff time frustrations have more routinely boiled over as the networks exercise their contractual power to optimize the football schedule for their interests. Oklahoma (while a member of the Big 12) and Ohio State have in recent years expressed their dismay at playing what they say are too many early-afternoon home games. Earlier this offseason, Texas Tech went public with its anger at the Big 12 and commissioner Brett Yormark for scheduling a Friday night game against Houston, pitting a matchup of two of the state’s college teams against the sacred Texas tradition of Friday night high school football.

The Utah game is part of a robust set of nonconference Power 4 opponents heading the Razorbacks’ way in the coming years. First-year Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield said Wednesday he liked the Razorbacks’ aggressive scheduling approach, though he spoke with reporters before the announcement of the kickoff times that prompted Yurachek’s statement.

“It’s great,” Silverfield said. “Do I wish we were playing at Utah Week 2? I’m excited for it. I wish it was maybe in Fayetteville, but that is what it is.”

Arkansas also plays Oklahoma State in Fayetteville in 2027, hosts Memphis and plays at Notre Dame in 2028, hosts Utah in 2029 and plays Texas Tech in Las Vegas in 2030.

“Whatever we schedule, whatever we line up, I’m all for,” Silverfield said. “We’re not gonna back away from anybody. That’s the exciting part. You already play a hard enough conference schedule. Everybody always says, ‘Don’t you wish you got to play four cupcakes, find a way to win two SEC games and go to bowl games every year?’ That’s a terrible, that’s a loser mentality and way to look at it. I was like, ‘Cool, whoever we line up against, we’re going to come out swinging.’ It’s my job to get this program back where it needs to be.”