Sam Pittman’s first impression upon Razorback Nation lends the notion that Arkansas’ new head football coach is the one many wanted all along.
For the sake of Razorback athletics, let’s hope that feeling is reinforced by everything Pittman does to make Arkansas football relevant again after it slept with the fishes in this decade.
Associate head coach at the University of Georgia, where he coached the offensive line, Pittman does not need a city map of Fayetteville, previously having coached three years at UA under Bret Bielema. The first cracks in Bielema’s program were detected when the jewels of his first Razorback staff — Pittman, Jim Chaney, Chris Ash and Randy Shannon among others — went elsewhere. I once asked Bielema at a local Razorback Club meeting that, with so much turnover on his staff, was he hard to work for.
He chuckled and said, “Every one that left got more money,” a standard response for anyone concerning a former employee.
Any departing boss should hope that things are better than when he took the job. It cannot be said that Bielema, with a 2-1 bowl record and some landmark wins at Arkansas, completely failed in that regard. But not many were surprised when, moments after a loss in the final game of his fifth season, Bielema was sent packing.
Likewise, any employee should want to leave under terms good enough that he may return some day. Sam Pittman, with the support of many ex-Razorbacks, today holds a head coaching position in the Southeastern Conference that, at 58, he had reason to believe might never come.
Pittman’s specialty, as noted, is coaching offensive linemen. Arkansas writers familiar with the SEC hammered home that, leaving the Southwest Conference, the Hogs would need offensive and defensive linemen as never before. Though spread offenses are the rage at some schools and their influence is ever growing, the SEC remains a line-of-scrimmage league. Passing teams are no longer considered desperate, as when Frank Broyles came to Arkansas in 1957, but offensive balance is required more than ever.
Arkansas fans are quick to judge a new coach’s body English, whether he looks eager and willing or not. Dana Altman never coached a game at Arkansas but is remembered for the hangdog look he displayed in a 2007 press conference after being named Stan Heath’s successor in men’s basketball. So fidgety was Altman that when he reneged on his Razorback commitment the next day, it was suggested here that he unlearn the words to the UA alma mater and fight song.
Pittman looks ready to go — forward, that is, instead of back to Georgia, like Altman with Oregon.
“I think you’re going to see an exciting football team,” Pittman said Monday. “I think you’re going to see one that plays hard. We represent the state of Arkansas, and I think you’re going to see one that represents it.”
That’s straighter talk from a Razorback football coach than poor Chad Morris ever uttered. Morris, whose 2017 SMU squad of 7-5 somehow propelled its coach to the SEC, vowed that his offense would be “left lane, hammer down.” As Arkansas’ losses under Morris mounted, his postgame press conferences became sprinkled with phrases like “completely unacceptable” and promises to “hold everyone in the program accountable.”
After 24 games that Arkansas beat not one SEC or Power 5 opponent — losing to lesser lights Colorado State, North Texas, San Jose State and Western Kentucky — Morris’ “hammer down” stuff proved unsafe at any speed. With two games left in his second season, UA athletics director Hunter Yurachek ended the Morris misadventure.
Still, even with Pittman, risks are involved, not the least being whether he can assemble and keep a strong staff and handle all the requirements (recruiting and media access included) of a head coach in college football, especially one in the SEC.
Says Yurachek: “As one of the nation’s premier offensive line coaches, he has built a remarkable body of work thanks to his tremendous passion for his student-athletes, including teaching the fundamentals and developing his players on and off the field. Sam instills in his players the motivation, grit and determination required to compete and win. Throughout this process, I heard from many of his former players about the tremendous influence he had on them as a player and as a man.”
Pittman, quite frankly, is the kind of hire, one with no head coaching experience, that Frank Broyles balked at unless, as with Jack Crowe replacing Ken Hatfield, in 1990, he had virtually no choice. Broyles demanded that a head coach be tested under fire, that on-the-job training for the face of the program be minimal. John Barnhill, Arkansas’ athletics director in the 1950, liked Broyles all three times Frank expressed interest in UA but did not bring him to Fayetteville until after one season as Missouri’s head coach.
Then again, looking at the College Football Playoffs this year, how much is experience worth? Dabo Swinney at Clemson, Ryan Day at Ohio State and Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma are in their first head coaching jobs. Ed Orgeron was fired at Ole Miss after a 0-8 SEC record in 2007 but now has LSU two games from a national championship.
That Pittman dotes on the offensive line, an especially weak position at Arkansas in recent years, is encouraging. If only through osmosis, Razorback fans hope he can grasp other things quickly like Kirby Smart, his most recent boss, at Georgia. It would help if he could pick out a quarterback in a crowd of Christmas shoppers, which Morris found difficult.
Pittman, paid $900,000 to coach Georgia’s O-line, has a $5 million assistant-salary pool at Arkansas, Yurachek said, which one man on Twitter opines is “really low considering the need for him to hire top coordinators. Guess money was a problem.”
But what would you expect from an SEC program in a small state, one that pays its ex-coaches millions not to run on the field through the 'A' formed by the band on game days?
Do well, Coach Pittman. With apologies to Paul Simon, Razorback Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.