FAYETTEVILLE — There are online workshops that will teach you how to write a slogan. If you are an Arkansas football fan, you detest them.
Stuff like “hammer down,” or “left lane” or “pop the clutch” were common phrases thrown around by Chad Morris in his first months as he sped into a 2-10 season in Year 1, then fired in Year 2 of what eventually became another 2-10.
Fans eventually turned on Morris and those slogans were used to suggest that’s how fast the coach should leave town never to return. Some headlines were written after 30-point losses to emphasize that the Hogs had been “hammered down.”
But there is still a time for slogans. I have a few favorite phrases — maybe more mantra than slogan — which I take with me on fly fishing trips. Those I’ve coached into the sport have heard them over and over.
The first: “Check your fly often.” If there isn’t one at the end of your line, you are in trouble.
And, then there is this: “There are no flying fish.” The point, if you are busy casting over and over, your fly is not in the water. And too many crash landings of your fly line in the same spot spook the fish anyway.
Maybe these are just catch phrases and don’t qualify as slogans. But those who fish with me hear them enough that they remember them.
Those waiting for something catchy for a Christmas coffee mug or a new Razorback T-shirt were probably disappointed during Sam Pittman’s introduction on Monday afternoon at Walker Pavilion.
There were no slogans from the new football coach, but there were some descriptions of Pittman’s vision of a team of fighting Razorbacks, tough and disciplined. And, it was simple enough for everyone in Razorback Nation to grab and smile about.
“We want our program to reflect the great state of Arkansas,” Pittman said. “I’m not a big slogan guy or anything like this. We’re going to work hard. We’re going to be blue collar. We’re going to be tough.”
I listened for two hours before I got a chance to ask the most important question in my mind: How would he do that?
“It’s hard not to be tough if you are tough every day,” Pittman said. “You instill the fight every day. It’s my belief that you are hard nosed every day. We will pride ourselves on toughness.
“You do that by communicating a lot. They will know how to be tough.”
Specifically, Pittman said his practices would be fast paced, but not to a fault. That was my guess on one of the things that went wrong with Morris. His practices never slowed enough to allow emphasis on mistakes. They were on to the next play, oftentimes with almost no time to talk in between for any of the assistants. The same mistakes reappeared loss after loss.
“We will be physical and fast, but we will take time to coach sometimes,” Pittman said. “We will have walk through sessions to make sure we know our assignments. There are different ways to learn and we will use all of them.
“We will work on fundamentals. If you talk to NFL coaches, that’s the biggest thing that’s gone from the game.
“It’s basic fundamentals. It’s three-step reads. And, we are going to coach tough, then worry about the next things.”
That was my cue to call a friend, to borrow a phrase from the old game show, “Who wants to be a millionaire?”
Former Razorback offensive lineman Frank Ragnow, reached on his off day with the Detroit Lions, was more than willing to talk about his favorite coach one day after the Pittman introduction. How Pittman will instill toughness was an easy question to answer.
“It’s easy to be tough when you work with Sammy P every day,” Ragnow said. “He’s amazing, the same every day.”
Ragnow laughed when asked if he called him “Sammy P” to his face. No, it’s about like asking a Razorback baseball player if he calls Dave Van Horn just DVH.
“No, to his face, he’s Coach Pittman, still,” Ragnow said. “But we all called him Sammy P when we weren’t around him.”
And when they weren’t around him, they were excited about their next meeting.
“The center group always met with Coach Pittman 15 minutes before everyone else,” Ragnow said. “But we’d try to be early. The centers — me, Mitch Smothers and Zach Rogers — would sprint from class to be first in the room so we’d get a little time to talk.
“It was an all-out race to his room. And, then there would be about 15 minutes before we got started just to visit. He’d pull up drawings of his dream lake house and talk about anything we wanted. Finally, we’d get to football.
“That never changed. It was always anything you wanted to talk about with him and even after he went to Georgia, there would be texts. He’d call our moms, our sisters and our whole family. You were always in his family. I don’t know any other coach who is like that.
“I invited him to Minnesota for my draft party. He flew in from Georgia. He still texts my little sister. If she’s having boyfriend problems, he’ll call. That’s just Sammy P, always the same.”
The toughness part was easy to explain.
“That’s just who he is in practice,” Ragnow said. “You just love the guy so much that you want to work your tail off. It’s a sense of family and you don’t want to let him down.
“The family was so big and so diverse. You think about me from Minnesota, Denver Kirkland from Miami, Dan Skipper from Denver, Sebastian Tretola from California, Mitch from Springdale and I could go on and on — all from completely different backgrounds, but he got us so close. They are still my best friends.
“Together we were having so much fun that it didn’t seem like work. The practices seemed easy. You work hard, you didn’t hear much, but if you didn’t, he got after you with some fire. He had such passion.”
How will Pittman be as a head coach?
“What I’d say first is that he’s going to be able to recruit who ever he wants from any place in the country,” Ragnow said. “Then I’ll say that his current players are going to love him. He’s the same guy every day. He’s fun and consistent and cares so much for you.
“The players he recruits will be freaks. He will recruit talent and they will want to work hard.”
What is the vision Ragnow sees for the Pittman era?
“Coach always said the same thing and it would make me laugh: I ain’t a good ball coach, but I recruit freaks,” he said.
That translates to size. Pittman didn’t dwell on the lack of size in the team he inherited, but said, “We are going to have to get a little bit bigger.”
Ragnow went a little deeper into what Pittman wants as far as line size on both sides of the ball.
“I came to school at probably 270 pounds, but he said not to worry because Coach (Ben) Herbert (in strength and conditioning) would put the weight on me. I was one of the smallest, but we all got bigger. You look at our lines and Georgia’s lines, they were huge. We were the biggest lines in football.
“The skill guys he recruits will be freaks, too. You are going to love it. I told him (Sunday) when he called, ‘I’m coming to Fayetteville to see you as soon as I can.’ I watched his introduction and the crying. I watched it all. He cried because he cares and I’m so happy.”
The size is a must for what has happened in the SEC.
“Look around, everyone has 320 and 330 defensive linemen,” Ragnow said. “It’s simple physics, someone bigger is going to push you back. You can’t be 275.
“But he doesn’t just recruit size. He wants to know if you will work.
“I can’t wait to see it. I’m all Hog and I’m all in with Coach Pittman. I’m pumped.”
Ragnow said he talked to both his former coach and Jamie, his wife.
“She was so excited,” Ragnow said. “They both always talked about how much they loved Fayetteville and that’s real.”
Pittman covered that in his first session with the media.
“You know Jamie’s from Pittsburg, Kansas,” Pittman said. “We did not get a divorce when we left Arkansas for a year, but she did not talk to me for a year when I was in Athens.
“She just loved Arkansas. She’s like me. When the opportunity came to come back, she was ecstatic and she’s still that way, and honestly so am I. It’s hard to explain the passion that you have for a program. It’s a lot easier to show it.”
And, Pittman did. He cried when Hunter Yurachek, the UA athletics director, made the job offer in his home on Sunday. Pittman broke down twice while pacing on the podium talking to the introductory gathering in Walker Pavilion.
Those who know Sam and Jamie confirmed exactly what they said Monday about their love for Fayetteville. Pittman called Dustin Fry, the offensive line coach for Morris, when he heard they were moving from SMU to the Ozarks.
Fry said Pittman told him point blank they would love it. Pittman explained to Fry it was “Jamie’s favorite place” of all their coaching stops.
It’s that love that translates in recruiting. Pittman said the trick is to build such a relationship a recruit “can’t say no.” It becomes more difficult because a head coach can make only one in-home visit while an assistant can make seven.
“There are still things you can do, as far as phone calls and texts, to build that relationship,” he said. “I’ve heard from maybe 400 to 500 coaches that want to come here, so if coaches want to come here, why can’t we get players to come here.”
It’s relationship building.
“The only way is to get someone to believe in you,” Pittman said. “If you go to class 50 percent of the time, the teacher doesn’t know who you are. Don’t be shocked if you get an F.
“It’s the same way with recruiting. It’s communication. We are going to have it. Recruiting is getting to know you. I learned from a lot of good ones, like Butch Davis (at North Carolina) and Kirby Smart (at Georgia). Kirby was good and I learned what you need.”
There was a big thank you to those coaches and a special mention of his high school coach at Grove, Okla. Charlie Cooper, later head coach and athletics director at Rogers, taught him work ethic.
“My greatest coach was Charlie Cooper,” Pittman said. “He taught me I could take my mind and body much further than I thought. He made you tough. I called him (to say thank you).”
As for his new team, Pittman began the process of restoring confidence they could win in his first meeting on Sunday night, just hours after being hired in Athens.
“I told them they didn’t choose me, but I sure as hell chose them,” he said. “They felt it. We have a lot of work to do.
“I showed them my phone and told them it was blowing up with coaches wanting to join the people in the room.”
He said restoring confidence is not a “drastic” process. He will teach them to believe again. He said he couldn’t speak to what happened the last three or four years “because I wasn’t here.” That might be a good explanation of what was wrong.
Pittman was clear he’s been a Razorback for a long time. He said an uncle in Grove was a Razorback fan and would sit in his car to listen to games on the radio.
“So I was a fan, too,” he said. “We have relatives in Russellville who sent us a sympathy card after (the 1978 Orange Bowl) when Arkansas beat Oklahoma,” he said. “I asked them why send it to me, because I’m a Razorback fan.”
Cooper helped Pittman and several other Grove high school prospects attend a Lou Holtz football camp in 1979. Pittman would later be an All-American at Pittsburg State, but he called himself “a one star” prospect when he went to that camp at Arkansas.
Either way, he figures he lost a chance to earn an Arkansas scholarship when he skipped a meeting, the highlight tape of the Orange Bowl.
“Me and my buddies were in a dorm room and we heard tap, tap, tap at the door,” Pittman said. “It was Coach Holtz. He said, ‘If we have a function, you have to be there.’ It’s probably why I missed my scholarship, missing that meeting. I would have been a legend at Arkansas.”
It’s part of the legend now of a budding Arkansas legend. He’s passed all of the first stages of legendary status because of the buildup from his former players.
Yurachek said he never saw that letter circulated by the likes of Ragnow and center Travis Swanson. It did make an impression when former player Darren McFadden called on Pittman’s behalf.
Yurachek was beaming as Pittman described his feelings upon his return.
“When I came here the first time, it was a dream,” Pittman said. “Now it’s whatever’s better than a dream.”
Maybe there is a slogan there: Better Than a Dream.