FAYETTEVILLE — The big uglies cheered in unison on Dec. 8, 2019.
The day one of their own got the opportunity of a lifetime.
Sam Pittman, heretofore career offensive line guru, was hired by the University of Arkansas to serve as head coach.
Pittman, a celebrated O-line whisperer and recruiter extraordinaire, was certainly not the favorite when UA Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek started his search the month before. But his personal pitch resonated with Yurachek, deputy athletic director Jon Fagg and ex-Razorback Steve Cox as he professed his lifelong love of the Razorbacks and put forth his vision in his interviews.
Now let’s set the record straight. Not all offensive linemen are “big uglies.” There are handsome ones, too.
But the truth is their odds of landing head coaching gigs rank well behind coordinators and assistants who specialize in quarterbacks, receivers, defensive backs or linebackers.
And yet there may be no position on a football field where the camaraderie needs to be tighter, the bonds more unbreakable than on an offensive front.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason Pittman’s big promotion — he has served as an assistant head coach numerous times the last 25 years — was met with such professional pride.
Pittman last served as a head coach in 1993 at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College. He knew he could take the big reins again some day.
Pittman was recently asked whether offensive line coaches face an uphill battle in head coaching searches.
“I think, No. 1, in all honesty I just want to do a good job for the University of Arkansas,” Pittman said. “Would I like O-line coaches to have opportunities? Do I think there’s guys out there who are worthy of head coaching jobs? Of course. But my main concern is I just want to do the best … job I can for the University of Arkansas.”
Pittman said he received hundreds of congratulatory texts and phone calls from the O-line club after his hiring went official.
“There’s no doubt I was one of them that sent him a text,” said Matt Luke, the former Ole Miss head coach who picked up Pittman’s last position as offensive line coach at Georgia. “He did the same for me when I received the opportunity, along with several other O-line coaches. It’s just a very tight-knit group of guys, and we all pull for each other. I certainly wish him nothing but the best.”
Former Georgia offensive lineman Matt Stinchcomb, now an ESPN analyst, said unless a program uses the model like a Dan Mullen at Florida, a Gus Malzahn at Auburn or a Mike Leach at Mississippi State — head coaches who have generally called their own plays — hiring a coordinator or a position coach as a head coach doesn’t matter all that much.
“I will say that if you’re an O-line coach, you are coaching the ultimate team position in the ultimate team game,” Stinchcomb said. “So you, by very nature, have to find ways to get guys to work together, to build chemistry, to enhance strengths and address weaknesses and cover them up if necessary.
“I mean, that’s an O-line meeting room right there. So you expand that out to the scale of an entire team, I don’t know that there’s a better teaching ground for that type of job description or function than coaching the offensive line.”
Still, in the modern age of the no-huddle, Spread offense in college football, Pittman is somewhat of an outlier. He has never been an offensive coordinator.
As athletic directors hustle to find the next offensive mastermind — a la LSU’s Joe Brady last year — to solve the schemes of defensive ace Nick Saban and his growing ilk in an effort to scale the top of the college football mountain, they typically tab hot offensive coordinators and quarterback gurus for their head coaching jobs.
So Yurachek’s choice of Pittman last December ran a little against the grain.
Pittman received a public push from a group of former Arkansas offensive linemen, like Travis Swanson, Dan Skipper, Frank Ragnow and Sebastian Tretola, who wrote or endorsed an open letter asking Yurachek to consider Pittman, who turned the Hogs’ offensive linemen into household names and media guide cover boys between 2013-15.
His ascension to head coach is inspiring to current Arkansas offensive linemen.
“It’s amazing,” said junior tackle Dalton Wagner. “If you ever want to get into coaching, it gives you some hope that maybe an O-lineman can make it one day. Usually it’s a QB or wide receivers or something to get the head coaching job. But an O-line coach as a head coach? I like it.”
Yurachek talked to the coaches du jour like Lane Kiffin, Leach and Arkansas native Eliah Drinkwitz, quarterback masters who all wound up changing jobs and landing in the SEC during the winter.
Yet he hired the 58-year-old Pittman, the only current SEC head coach whose background is on the offensive line.
Among the other 13 SEC head coaches, six handled mostly quarterbacks as assistants (Drinkwitz, Jimbo Fisher, Kiffin, Leach, Malzahn and Mullen); six more were primarily involved with defensive backs (Saban, Derek Mason, Will Muschamp, Jeremy Pruitt, Kirby Smart and Mike Stoops); and the background for LSU’s Ed Orgeron is on the defensive line.
Pittman is one of very few current Power 5 head coaches who specialized in the offensive line before becoming a head coach.
Kansas Coach Les Miles would qualify, as he played on the offensive line at Michigan and coached it for 13 years at Colorado and Michigan before embarking on a successful head coaching career.
Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, Oregon’s Mario Cristobal and Iowa State’s Matt Campbell come to mind, and UCLA’s Chip Kelly worked the O-line for two years at New Hampshire. So among all the Power 5 head coaches, the ones who earned their chops on the offensive front can be counted on one hand.
Not that an offensive line background discounts the possibility of great success. Vince Lombardi, Joe Gibbs, Art Shell, Danny Ford, Phillip Fulmer, Johnny Vaught and Bo Schembechler won NFL championships, Super Bowls, NCAA championships and great acclaim after devoting parts of their careers to coaching or playing offensive line. Ford was head coach at Arkansas from 1993-97 after leading Clemson to the 1981 national championship, and Gibbs was an assistant coach for the Razorbacks in 1971-72.
Pittman’s case is somewhat unique.
The Arkansas program was arguably at an all-time low as Yurachek started his search to replace Chad Morris following back-to-back 2-10 seasons.
Yurachek felt he needed a coach who was truly passionate about coaching in Fayetteville above all else in his search.
Former Razorback All-American Darren McFadden played a key role on Pittman’s behalf during the search, passing along word of the letter of support written by Pittman’s former Arkansas linemen.
“From the time that we made a change in the leadership of our football program, people started talking to me about Sam Pittman,” Yurachek said upon Pittman’s hiring. “Obviously, he had developed quite a reputation for recruiting and offensive line play when he was here.
“Then I started doing some of my own research and talking to people across the country about Sam, and watching him sometimes on the sidelines and trying to digest any type of videos I could of him and his enthusiasm. He and I visited a couple times by phone before I had a chance to officially meet him.”
Pittman is highly regarded in coaching circles, but he had to overcome the typecast of a career offensive line coach.
“I was comfortable being an offensive line coach because I was driven to try to continue to be a good offensive line coach,” Pittman said at his hiring news conference. “There’s a lot of work in that. But I was head coach a long time ago at a couple of high schools and a juco and I enjoyed it. But when this came open, I felt like I was ready for the job. So that’s why I pursued it.
“There were some other jobs out there when I was a little bit younger, head coaching jobs that had a little bit of interest in me, but I just didn’t feel like I was ready to be a head coach, and I do now certainly.”
Stinchcomb had a close-up view of Pittman’s work at Georgia, as he lives between Atlanta and the Bulldogs’ campus in Athens, Ga.
“I think he’s a brilliant recruiter and getting guys to buy in to what it is they’re trying to do,” Stinchcomb said. “It’s not always easy, I think, to get a bunch of guys that are highly touted, that have talent, know they have talent, to play their role. That can be tricky.
“And I think that was probably the most impressive part of it, was that it seemed as if in a room full of five-stars and highly touted recruits that those guys gee’d and haw’d pretty well with each other. That’s saying something. And I think that was probably one of the more impressive elements of it. Step one is getting them to want to come play for you. Step two is to actually get them to do it once they’re there. I think he was able to do that.”
Luke thinks the nature of offensive line coaches lends to strong leadership traits.
“Offensive line coaches are always guys that are big family guys and guys that build those strong family relationships with the players,” Luke said. “I think that part comes easy as far as that team unity and the buy-in.
“I think that’s going to be the strong part for any O-Line coach. The unique thing is that you make decisions that you know are best for what you believe in your heart, even when people don’t agree with you. I think that’s always the tough part.
“Most offensive line coaches do have to work their way up. And so I think having that work ethic … and the blue-collar toughness is what it takes to win football games, especially in the Southeastern Conference. So it is unique for an O-line coach to be a head coach, but I think the relationship side and the blue-collar mentality are some of the strong points for sure.”
Pittman certainly had duties beyond a normal position coach when he was assistant head coach at Georgia (2019) and Arkansas (2013-15) in recent seasons, and at North Carolina (2011), Northern Illinois (2004-06) and Western Michigan (1999) before that. But the 26-year college assistant blew away Yurachek, Fagg and Cox with his passion for leading the Razorbacks.
“I love this place, and I want it to be what it should be,” Pittman said during training camp. “And it’s going to take a lot of work.
“But I’ll tell you this my friend, I’m surrounded by some great coaches, and our players are playing hard. And as long as they’ll do that, we’re going to improve. … You can feel the passion of Razorback fans. They want some respect, and certainly we’re going to try to give it to them.”
The search committee trio was welcomed into Pittman’s home in Athens, Ga., for an interview the day after the Bulldogs lost to LSU in the SEC Championship Game. Cox was checking out the cookies supplied by the coach’s wife Jamie Pittman when he noted napkins printed out with the phrase: “Run the damn ball.”
Clearly Pittman realizes how important a strong running attack factors into a balanced offense and the role the big dudes up front play.
Pittman hired Brad Davis, a protege, to handle the offensive line for the Razorbacks. Both of them, who don’t shy away from the grind necessary for a quality front, are also thought of as coaches with whom players build lifelong relationships.
Witness Pittman’s presence at the former Razorback Ragnow’s NFL Draft party a few years back when he was already coaching at Georgia. And the exchanges he had with ex-Georgia linemen and first-round NFL Draft picks Andrew Thomas and Isaiah Wilson this year.
Davis was asked if he heard about the former Razorbacks lobbying for Pittman.
“It’s no surprise and quite frankly, it’s obvious with this school, but I can’t tell you … how many different kids that he’s impacted from different places that have also reached out to me about him,” Davis said. “It’s amazing. Players and coaches for that matter.
“When you bring up Coach Pittman’s name, there’s a smile, there’s a warm feeling that comes into the room. The conversation changes when two people realize they have that common connection to Coach Pittman. He has positively affected so many people’s lives that you really can’t even measure. He’s just a good man and he’s the right guy for the job.”
Many college analysts believe offensive line coaches are smart guys, though their “toughness” persona is often played up the most.
“You can’t be dumb and coach the offensive line, I know that,” Stinchcomb said. “You can see that a mile away. But I’ll tell you what I do think is interesting, and this stood out with Coach Pittman, is that the old-school model, you’d see a lot of hard-line O-line coaches that you wanted to play for but you didn’t want to be around them. And Coach Pittman has found a way to kind of transcend that.”
Stinchcomb thinks the style of tough-guy offensive line coaches who demanded players “bring their lunch pail” to work, then didn’t bond off the field with them was not necessary.
“Coach Pittman, and I think that’s something else that really stood out, those guys … clearly you’ve heard them say it, guys that played for him genuinely liked to play for him,” he said. “Not just respected him, because there’s plenty of coaches out there that you can respect and not necessarily like playing for them.
“I think he has both. I think he was able to do both. And it seemed like they genuinely liked being around him. Stuff like that, it can be special. … To have your players respect you, to be able to get the job done and have them like being around you, that’s like hitting for the cycle.”