FAYETTEVILLE - Growing up a Razorbacks fan in Grove, Okla. near Arkansas’ border, Sam Pittman remembers those Frank Broyles and Lou Holtz years when Arkansas victories like at Mississippi State on Saturday night were appreciated yet a norm.
Arkansas’ first-year head coach vows returning those Hogs salad days.
“We are the University of Arkansas and we’re supposed to win games,” Pittman said after the Razorbacks upset the AP 16th-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs, 21-14 in Starkville, Miss. “We’re supposed to win SEC games. I’m not a guy that can look in the future. But I know this: At the University of Arkansas, you’re supposed to win.”
But in the SEC they hadn’t won in over a thousand days. Twenty consecutive SEC losses and two head coaches fired since 2017. Knowing the heights the Razorbacks had reached and the depths they’ve fallen, Pittman vastly appreciates Arkansas’ appreciation for this stop in the SEC free fall.
“I’m really proud for the State of Arkansas,” Pittman said. “ Am I proud that we beat Mississippi State? You’re dang right!”
He’s even prouder his inherited team believed they could.
This team firsthand believed in defensive coordinator Barry Odom’s part in the Sept. 26 season opener of Arkansas leading nationally No. 4 Georgia midway through the third quarter. Losing 37-10, Arkansas eventually unraveled against Georgia’s nationally renowned defense and special teams.
That defensive team belief sustained Odom game-planning a patient, just rush three and drop eight back in zone coverage scheme frustrating Mississippi State quarterback K.J. Costello. Costello logged a litany of long passes in his SEC-record 623 yards at LSU a week earlier.
Odom presumed Costello would grow impatient throwing merely short passes underneath and force something.
On the opening series Arkansas nickel back Greg Brooks intercepted and returned the tone-setting 69-yard touchdown.
“We said, ‘Hey, he’s going to get impatient and hopefully he’ll throw us some,” Pittman said. “And he did and Brooks took it to the house.”
Safety Joe Foucha picked off two more Costello passes.
The Hogs weren’t surprised said junior linebacker Bumper Pool after making a career-high 20 tackles.
“This was the most prepared game I’ve ever played in,” Pool said. “Everybody going into it knew that we were going to do what we did tonight. When you have that kind of confidence going in, it’s unbelievable.”
Pool recalls the Hogs unbelievably shaky trailing 34-10 at half of last year’s 52-24 loss to Mississippi State in Fayetteville and the 52-6 embarrassment the Dogs inflicted at Starkville in 2018, Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek’s Arkansas debut year.
“We were here two years ago and we got beat really bad,” Pool said postgame. “Mr. Yurachek said it would never happen again. For it (winning) to happen here tonight it was just awesome!”
Success doesn’t stop at Starkville, Pool proposes.
“I’m so fired up for the rest of the season it’s unreal,” Pool said. “We just needed that one win to push us over and we got it.”