It’s not easy to have forgetful game with 94 combined points, but Arkansas fans will do their best push Ole Miss’ dominant 63-31 victory in Fayetteville out of their minds as quickly as possible.
The Razorbacks were moving the ball well enough early on, but a quick flurry of first quarter penalties, a goal-line stand that turned into a Rebel touchdown anyway, and then Taylen Green’s injury quickly made it clear that this wasn’t going to be the Hogs’ day. Even though the Hogs ended up with 31 points, they were down 35-10 at halftime, and by the time they got the ball in the third quarter, were already down 42-10 as Ole Miss converted scores just before and after the intermission. The game was effectively over at that point.
It’s November, and that means football teams are all hampered by injuries and roster depth is now a key factor for any team. Both Arkansas and Ole Miss were missing significant players, but the Razorbacks proved unable to overcome their issues, and to be fair, not many teams would react well when their quarterback and top running backs go down (not to mention other would-be starters).
Pittman Shifts Focus from “Blue-Collar” to…
Before the game, Pittman was recorded for ESPN saying that Arkansas didn’t have as much money as Ole Miss did for their NIL efforts, describing the Rebels’ defensive line as “Louis Vuitton” and Arkansas’ offensive line as a “Blue Light Special,” referring to the flash sales of Kmart, the now defunct department store. His remark was played on the broadcast early in the game and regularly referenced by the announcers throughout.
Since Pittman has been the coach at Arkansas, he’s regularly said all the right things about being confident in his players. “All we need is all we got” was a mantra in his first couple of seasons built around the work ethic of blue-collar standouts like Grant Morgan, Bumper Pool and Treylon Burks.
Pittman certainly didn’t intend anything derogatory by the Blue Light Special comment in the video clip below, but since it unfortunately came in what would later unfold as a blowout, it’s a tough look.
Intended or not, the implication – that Arkansas has only had the resources to scrape by while the program’s rivals have the money for luxurious depth – isn’t going to sit well.
Most Arkansas football observers have come to terms with the reality that Arkansas has a smaller population and recruiting base than many other programs, but the idea that Ole Miss is significantly ahead of Arkansas from an NIL contribution standpoint is an indictment of anyone leading this program over the last few years, including the coaching staff. If Pittman hasn’t helped raise the level of funds to be able to have the depth to compete with Ole Miss, Pittman’s as much to blame for that as anyone else.
Depth has been a perennial issue for Arkansas football, which has gone well over a decade since being considered as a front-runner for the SEC title according to sites on Webopedia. Injury fortunes have played a major role in any given year’s success or failure. It’s imperative for anyone responsible for the program to do whatever possible to alleviate that issue.
Similar Issue with Basketball Hogs?
Shifting gears but on the same highway, John Calipari is running an experiment with the Arkansas basketball program and its depth. Armed with a heavily publicized NIL war chest (the likes of which must be a pipe dream for Pittman), Calipari has shared that he’s opted to focus those funds on only the top “eight or nine guys” on the team. NIL deals aren’t public, so we don’t know for sure which players on the team are receiving what money, but if we take Calipari at his word, that means he’s aiming for a team with a fairly standard rotation throughout the season with little room for injury or error.
The best case scenario is that it proves to be a stroke of genius. Basketball, of course, has far fewer injuries than football and many of the best teams in the current era restrict rotations to seven or eight players by the time conference play rolls around. Eric Musselman was famous (in infamous, depending on your point of view) for playing as few players as possible as the season progressed.
However, in the pre-NIL era, there was not the same clear delineation between the NIL-funded main rotation and non-rotation players. Musselman used the non-conference portion of the season to experiment with the full roster’s rotation possibilities. That’s not likely to be the case for Calipari, at least not to the same extent.
No one should read too much into the results of exhibition games, for either good or bad. The game in Fayetteville against Kansas looked like a ton of fun. Fans appeared to immediately form attachments with some of the new players. Then the TCU game, well, less so. Arkansas led for most of the game but lost it in the fourth quarter (Arkansas’ exhibition games have used quarters instead of halves). If you’re concerned that Calipari’s experiment is too risky from a depth standpoint, blowing a late lead to TCU is not what you want to see.
That being said, it was an exhibition. It may be fair to be concerned about Calipari’s roster strategy for this season, but don’t use what happened against TCU as evidence that it will be a failure. There’s still a long way to go before we find out how that will turn out.
For football and Sam Pittman, however, there are only three regular season games left. They still have a great chance of making the postseason with a win over Louisiana Tech, and Missouri has proven themselves not to be anything near a super-team. Texas has been really good this year, but Hog fans definitely don’t deserve a third straight disappointing effort at home.
One thing is for sure: no one will confuse anyone starting for the basketball team with Blue Light Special player.
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What Pittman noted above is a little different from what he’d said a few days before.
Discussing Ole Miss on his weekly radio show, he said: “They’re the Louis Vuitton of defensive lines and we’re like Walmart. Blue Light Special, you know?”
I’d have to give this particular analogy here a non-passing grade given it was Kmart, not Walmart, that did such flash sales. But for the game itself, there’s no question what I would have gone with.
More analysis from Matthew Nichols here:
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