For much of the last couple years, Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman has drawn regular comparisons to Mike Anderson from Razorback faithful fed up with the team’s shortcomings.
As the team again and again tripped and fell into the pavement, the complaints came steady as a drumbeat:
“Sam is simply Mike 2.0.”
“He’s done his job bringing the program back from the John Pelphrey/Chad Morris depths. Now it needs to go to the next guy.”
And, of course, this golden oldie:
“He’s too nice.”
Pittman’s still pretty nice, of course. In the aftermath of Arkansas’ enormous home win over then No. 4 Tennessee on Saturday, he came across on the national TV cameras as much the same guy who was so pumped to take the job in 2019 that he didn’t even look at the compensation on his contract offer.
Or who somehow made the word “damn” seem as wholesome as apple pie when injecting it into the celebratory catchphrase that swept the state after those wins over the Mississippi schools in 2020 and was brought back on Saturday night:
As the din of the sold-out stadium receded, however, Pittman revealed an edgier side that goes beyond anything Mike Anderson ever said. When reminded that Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek had instructed Arkansas football fans to support the head Hog, he told CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello: “Well, I hope they’ll give our staff and our players respect. That’s all I give a shit about, to be honest with you.”
Well, bye-bye, Coach Aww Shucks. Nice to have known you.
“I’m gonna be fine, one way or the other, but I just want respect for our coaches and our team — and they got it,” he continued. “They earned it.”
Pittman getting more comfortable with flashing his harder side puts him more in line with Nolan Richardson, the Arkansas basketball coach under whom Anderson had served through the most successful years in that program’s history.
Part of Nolan’s genius was that he was able to strike the balance between publicly worrying about only his own team – like when he forced opponents to either play at Arkansas’ pace or get run out of the building – and here and there using the outside world’s apparent disrespect as motivation. In fact, Richardson practically made lack of respect the theme of the 1994 national title run – to the point where renowned columnist Mitch Albom took him to task for playing that hand way too much.
Albom rolled his eyes at the notion that Arkansas could be so overlooked given it’s “no backwater school. It’s a major college sports program,” as he wrote in 1994. “The Razorbacks were favored to win throughout the tournament, and they had the biggest international spotlight of any team, thanks partly to superfan President Bill Clinton, who attended their last three games.”
Arkansas Football Still Fighting Preconceptions
Fast forward 30 years and in at least one respect, Arkansas seems as overlooked as ever. Yes, John Calipari’s hire certainly moved the needle for the basketball program but the football program still lags behind in getting the recognition it deserves.
It’s still treated by some as a backwater program, which came to light in Arkansas’ 19-14 win over Tennessee and the immediate aftermath. There was, for starters, the way broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit so casually dismissed Malachi Singleton’s football IQ on air.
Then, after the game, Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel apparently forgot that the Volunteers’ opponent had a lot to do with why they lost.
Such arrogance fuels a national narrative that Tennessee’s downfall was more of a choke job that just happened at the wrong moment, like an ill-timed sneeze that arises purely on its own. While plenty of national analysts are giving the Hogs credit, some of the most influential ones are feeding into this faulty line of thinking.
Take Paul Finebaum, the so-called “Voice of the SEC,” who opined coming into the season that the Pittman era was “going off a cliff.”
While Finebaum did tip his hat at Arkansas for its “nasty” night venue, he otherwise analyzed Arkansas vs Tennessee almost exclusively through the lens of the Vols’ shortcomings on his “Matt Barrie Show” appearance.
“It wasn’t going to take much to beat them,” said Finebaum, referring to the Hogs. But apparently, as ESPN Paul sees it, the Vols sneezed or something and they magically weren’t able to do what they needed.
He added: “I thought winning at Norman [Oklahoma] really told us a lot about this program, and now? No.” So, as Finebaum sees it, the Vols can’t still be a very good team – despite beating Oklahoma by 10 points on the road – because they lost to Arkansas.
The subtext of what he thinks about this Razorbacks team is obvious there.
Tennessee Football Insiders Say Laughable Things
Perhaps the most disrespectful mainstream(ish) viewpoint toward Pittman and his program comes from the Tennessee football insiders Caleb Calhoun and Dave Hooker.
When it comes to Tennessee analysis, these guys know what they are talking about. They rightly point out that a lot of the Vols’ troubles on Saturday night came from the way that Arkansas’ defenders exploited the relatively weak point on the Vols’ offensive line – its tackles. “I think Lance Hurt made more mental mistakes, but John Campbell got beat way more in this one,” Calhoun said on “The Dave Hooker Show” on Saturday night.
Where these co-hosts go off the rails is when they discuss other programs.
As Dave Hooker sees it, there is zero question that Oklahoma is better than Arkansas. Yes, the Sooners have only one loss, and Arkansas has two, so the Sooners have a solid case. That’s why they are ranked above Arkansas in most of this week’s polls and have a stronger chance of making the College Football Playoffs according to sports books through gamechampions.
But there’s an argument to be made the Hogs are at least equal to Oklahoma given they beat Tennessee, while Oklahoma didn’t, and have played tougher competition so far. So it’s far from “a fact” that “this Arkansas team’s not as good as Oklahoma,” as he claims.
Calhoun insinuated this by saying that Arkansas could easily be 6-0 right now instead of 4-2. The Hogs, in short, are better than their record indicates.
Other than that point, Calhoun and Hooker seem to be on the same page about Arkansas as an inferior program against which Tennessee simply had a bad day. Interestingly, they help prove this wasn’t the case when they discuss which part of the Razorbacks was most responsible for beating Tennessee.
Calhoun thinks the answer is simple: “Outside of that last drive by Malachi Singleton, Taylen Green was the one who won Arkansas that game… If you were an Arkansas fan, you would give Taylen Green the most credit for winning this game, right?”
But Hooker disagrees, saying the Hogs defensive line was more the problem: “If I’m an Arkansas fan, I’m probably thinking that they dominated this five-star offensive tackle who transferred in and another guy who started like 30 games, [I’m thinking] that their edge pass rush was just so incredible, where now what you and I know is that they’re [the Vols] not good at those positions.”
Back-handed, meet compliment.
Word to the wise: Not being able to pinpoint one specific aspect of Arkansas’ team that beat you indicates it was more than one part. Maybe because, well, it was many. That means, yes, Arkansas is actually a good team.
The most egregious aspect of all this ridiculous Vols-centric narrative building is that it comes from a place of deep misunderstanding.
That comes through loud and muddled when Hooker gets more into why he considers losing to Arkansas “a really bad loss.” As he sees it, Arkansas will likely beat Louisiana Tech and Mississippi State and lose at least three out of four against Missouri, LSU, Ole Miss and Texas.
“Look back at this [loss] at the end of the season, and [Arkansas] is at best a 7-5 team with Sam Pittman probably getting fired.”
What?
After beating a Top 5 team at home, something neither Bobby Petrino nor Bret Bielema could do as head coaches, there’s absolutely zero chance Pittman will get fired if Arkansas wins seven games. It’s a near certainty he would keep his job with six wins and a bowl appearance.
In the next couple weeks, if Sam Pittman feels like his players are losing any of their edge coming off a huge win, he doesn’t need to look far for an extra jolt of motivation.
Until now, his brand hasn’t been very outward looking in that regard. But what worked for Nolan Richardson may work for him, too.
***
Yes, Dave Hooker actually predicts Pittman will still “probably” get fired at 11:00 here:
Clint Stoerner’s Surprise Assessment
While to some it appears that Arkansas’ defensive line is the strongest part of its defense, former Arkansas quarterback feels that title should go to the secondary.
“That’s the strength of our defense,” Stoerner said on Monday’s “Out of Bounds” show on The Buzz 103.7 FM. “We’re deeper, we’re better” than previous years.
“They’ve got great instincts in the secondary,” he said, praising the unit’s skill and depth. Stoerner then brought up a play that specifically impressed him in which Jayden Johnson “showed a ‘cover two’ look and then he comes down on the crosser and literally a split second after the ball hit the tight end, he knocked the ball out. I mean, you can’t coach that man. That’s instinct. You can teach a guy ‘Hey, sell ‘Cover 2′ and then come down on the crosser.’
“But to do it with that level of timing and the line that he took to the pass catcher – it was just flawless.”
Hear Finebaum on Arkansas vs Tennessee football at 12:20 here:
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