MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Perhaps the biggest winner in Friday night’s Liberty Bowl was Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman.
The fifth-year coach had seemingly already secured his return in 2025 after being on the hot seat earlier in the year, but beating Texas Tech 39-26 at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium for the Razorbacks’ seventh win of the season triggered an automatic $250,000 raise in his contract.
Beginning next year, Pittman’s annual salary is $5.5 million. With three years left on his deal, the bowl win — which Arkansas managed despite missing more than half of its starters from the regular season — was essentially worth $750,000 to Pittman.
Of course, that assumes he coaches out the remainder of his contract. Support for the 63-year-old former offensive line coach had plummeted to its lowest point of his tenure prior to the Liberty Bowl and he may need to build upon this year’s 7-6 record to preserve his job.
The other way Friday’s win impacted Pittman’s contract is it increased the threshold for his buyout to drop from 75% to 50% of his remaining salary.
If the Razorbacks go 5-7 or better next year, they would owe him approximately $8.25 million if they fired him for convenience. They’d have to go 4-8 or worse for it to drop to $5.5 million.
Also, it’s worth clearing up a common misconception about Pittman’s contract: He did not earn a one-year extension with the win. His deal included only one such extension and he already earned it with the 2022 season.
A couple of erroneous reports had Pittman being extended through the 2028 season with a bowl win. That includes one by USA Today contracts expert Steve Berkowitz following the game, but he quickly issued a correction.
Taylen Green’s Historic Season
One reason for optimism going into the 2025 season should be the play of quarterback Taylen Green, who turned in one of his best performances of the season in the Liberty Bowl.
In his first game since announcing his return for a second year at Arkansas, the redshirt junior accounted for 422 total yards and a pair of touchdowns. He did it both through the air (11 of 21 passing for 341 yards) and on the ground (81 yards on 15 carries), with a score each way.
The most notable statistic for Green, though, was the fact it was just his third turnover-free game of the season – a feat he previously accomplished against UAPB and Tennessee. It snapped a six-game streak in which he committed at least one.
“Taylen took over,” Sam Pittman said. “We have Taylen Green, a lot of teams don’t and it gives us (an) opportunity to win.”
The 341 passing yards broke a 55-year-old school record for a bowl game, surpassing Bill Montgomery’s mark (338 yards) set against Ole Miss in the 1970 Sugar Bowl.
It was a great cap to what was quietly one of the best seasons ever by an Arkansas quarterback. Not only did he become the fifth 3,000-yard passer in UA history, but he also became just the third Arkansas quarterback to eclipse 600 rushing yards.
Green ended the year completing 60.4% of his passes for 3,154 yards, 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions, plus added 602 yards and eight touchdowns on 156 carries.
His 3,756 total yards this year rank second on the school’s single-season list, finishing just shy of Ryan Mallett’s record of 3,795 yards set in 2010.
If he can stay healthy while cleaning up the turnovers and the Razorbacks cut down the sacks (he had 838 yards and averaged 6.8 yards on non-sack carries), Green should have an excellent shot to break Mallett’s mark next year.
Harsh Criticism of Texas Tech
Opt outs and the transfer portal left Arkansas extremely depleted for the Liberty Bowl, but Texas Tech was also missing several key pieces.
The Red Raiders were without their 3,000-yard passer (Behren Morton), 1,500-yard rusher (Tahj Brooks) and 1,000-yard receiver (Josh Kelly) for the Liberty Bowl.
Morton (shoulder surgery) and Kelly (NFL Draft opt out) were known ahead of time, but Brooks was considered “50/50” until Texas Tech announced about 45 minutes before kickoff that he wouldn’t be playing.
Texas Tech’s defense was pretty close to full strength, but it was one of the worst units in the FBS this season and was carried by the offense. But without that key core — and offensive coordinator Zach Kittley gone to be the head coach at FAU — former Arkansas great D.J. Williams was not impressed by the Razorbacks’ Liberty Bowl foe.
“That Texas Tech team coming into the matchup today, I feel like didn’t even belong on the football field,” Williams said in his postgame analysis for his 4th & 5 show on YouTube.
That may be a little harsh considering Arkansas had more departures than Texas Tech, plus it was a competitive game until the Razorbacks pulled away in the second half, but it’s important context for the bowl game.
Double Safeties in Liberty Bowl
A quirky aspect of the Liberty Bowl was the fact that both teams notched a safety, the somewhat rare 2-point play the defense can score when tackling the opponent in its own end zone.
Texas Tech got the first one when Isaac Smith sacked Taylen Green for a loss of 2 yards early in the second quarter. That actually sparked a mini rally for the Red Raiders, who followed it up with back-to-back touchdowns to pull within 21-19.
It was Texas Tech’s first safety since 2013 and the first allowed by Arkansas since T.J. Hammonds fumbled the ball out of the end zone on a trick play against Georgia in the 2020 season opener.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Razorbacks returned the favor when Anton Juncaj got to Texas Tech quarterback Will Hammond in the end zone for a 7-yard loss. It was his first sack of the season and Arkansas’ only non-offensive points of 2024.
Arkansas notched a pair of safeties in 2022, but both of them were “team” safeties – a punt blocked out of the back of the end zone by Quincey McAdoo against Liberty and an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone by South Carolina. It also had a “team” safety in 2015, when Toledo’s punter purposely ran out of the end zone.
The last Arkansas player to actually get credited with a safety was Jerry Franklin tackled an Ole Miss running back in the end zone in 2011.
According to StatHead, it was the first FBS game in which both teams scored a safety since Nov. 6, 2021, when it happened in a Washington-Oregon game. Surprisingly, there have been 21 such games since 2001, but it hasn’t happened in a bowl game since at least 2002, which is as far back as StatHead’s data goes.
Pair of Hogs Crack Century Mark
Most of the attention was focused on Dazmin James’ 137-yard performance – rightfully so – but veteran Isaac TeSlaa joined him in reaching triple digits by catching three passes for 107 yards.
It was just the eighth time in school history that Arkansas had two 100-yard receivers in the same game and the first time it accomplished the feat since the 2015 Ole Miss game, when Drew Morgan had 122 and Dominique Reed had 105.
Interestingly, the first time the Razorbacks did it was also against Texas Tech, way back in 1967. In that game, Max Peacock and David Dickey went for 149 and 123 yards, respectively, in a 31-27 loss to the Red Raiders in Little Rock.
Arkansas is now 4-4 in those games.
New Starters for Arkansas Football
Six different Razorbacks made their first career starts in the Arkansas vs Texas Tech matchup.
Five of those guys were on offense: running back Rodney Hill, tight end Maddox Lassiter, wide receiver CJ Brown, center Brooks Edmonson and right guard Kobe Branham.
Of the remaining six offensive starters, only three – quarterback Taylen Green, left tackle Fernando Carmona and right tackle E’Marion Harris – started every game this year. The other three had combined for just 13 starts in 2024 prior to the Liberty Bowl: eight by left guard Keyshawn Blackstock, four by wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa and one by tight end Andreas Paaske.
On the other side of the ball, defensive end Quincy Rhodes Jr. made his first career start.
Another cool aspect of the first-time starters is that five of them are Arkansas natives: Lassiter from Warren, Brown from Bentonville, Edmsonson from Bryant, Branham from Fort Smith and Rhodes from North Little Rock.
Availability Report for Arkansas Football
Based on a count by Best of Arkansas Sports during pregame warmups, the Razorbacks went into the Liberty Bowl with 86 total available players. Only 56 of them were on scholarship, and that number includes Maddox Lassiter and Brooks Edmonson, who were walk-ons until earlier this month.
Included in that number are just seven offensive linemen, but that also includes Edmonson.
Those are notable numbers because during the 2020 season, the SEC set minimum thresholds of 53 available scholarship players and seven scholarship offensive linemen. If teams dipped below those marks, they could postpone/cancel the game.
In addition to the NFL Draft opt outs and transfer portal players, the Razorbacks were without wide receiver Jordan Anthony because of personal reasons. Freshman offensive lineman Zuri Madison also wasn’t dressed out as he continues to cover from a torn ACL.
Two other walk-ons traveled with the team, but didn’t dress out: offensive lineman Tim Dawn and defensive lineman Elijah Brown.
It’s worth noting that kicker Kyle Ramsey, who’d been out since injuring his groin against Tennessee, was dressed out and went through pregame warmups. He was presumably available as the backup kicker behind Matthew Shipley.
Up Next for Arkansas Football
The 2024 season is officially over, with the Razorbacks finishing 7-6.
In a few months, they’ll reconvene with a completely different roster for spring ball. Next season doesn’t start until Aug. 30, when Arkansas hosts Alabama A&M.
The Bulldogs are coming off a 6-6 season of their own, but they’re an FCS squad that competes in the SWAC. One of their losses was a 73-3 blowout at the hands of Auburn.
Other Arkansas Football Tidbits
- With the win, Arkansas improved to 4-3 all-time in the Liberty Bowl. It lost its first three appearances (1971, 1984 and 1987) to Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia by a combined 10 points, but has since beaten East Carolina (2009), Kansas State (2015), Kansas (2022) and now Texas Tech (2024).
- The announced attendance for Arkansas vs Texas Tech at the Liberty Bowl was 37,764. It was the Razorbacks’ eight game since 2000 with a crowd under 40,000, regardless of location.
- Arkansas’ final set of rotating captains of 2024 were quarterback Taylen Green, left tackle Fernando Carmona, defensive tackle Cam Ball and linebacker Xavian Sorey Jr. The Razorbacks have yet to name permanent captains for this season.
- Devin Bale booted three punts of 50-plus yards, including two that pinned Texas Tech at the 2. He ended the year averaging 45.2 yards on 41 punts. That would rank sixth on the UA single-season chart, but he didn’t punt enough to qualify for the list. The minimum requirement is 4 punts per game, which would mean 52 over a 13-game season.
- Xavian Sorey made a team-high 10 tackles for Arkansas. That gives him 99 tackles for the season, meaning he finished one shy of reaching the century mark.
- Rodney Hill ripped off a 70-yard run early in the game, but finished with only 81 yards on eight carries. His touches were likely limited because of his ball security issues, as he lost a fumble on one carry and also fumbled on a kickoff return. That brings Arkansas’ nation-leading total of fumbles to 30 this season.
Arkansas vs Texas Tech Highlights
Liberty Bowl Postgame Press Conference
***
Check out D.J. Williams’ complete analysis of the Liberty Bowl:
***
More coverage of Arkansas vs Texas Tech in the Liberty Bowl from BoAS…
