Arkansas football has been a rollercoaster to follow this offseason, to say the absolute least. The Hogs have seen 25 scholarship players leave via the transfer portal and added 16 incoming transfers, plus there’ve been some wild Signing Day flips, smoky-room tales about tampering, a hip replacement surgery for head coach Sam Pittman – and a partridge in a pear tree, of course.
All of these twists and turns have naturally led fans to have plenty of questions. Some of them genuine, some of them more of the pitchfork and flaming torch variety. We’re here to tackle both in an 11-question countdown.
Beau is a Conway native and lifer, practicing law there for the last 18 years, being married for the last 24, and shooting from the hip about the Hogs since the 1980s.
Matthew is a lifelong Arkansas sports fan now living in Austin. A mild mannered criminal defense attorney by day and over-caffeinated, rabid sports opinionator by night. He is who posed each of the following questions.
Arkansas Football Questions
1. Are we pleased with Arkansas’ coordinators? What about the assistant coaches?
Beau: As a fan and fly-by-night pundit, I tend to be harder on the coordinators than the head coach sometimes. This year was no exception. While I’m disappointed in Sam Pittman’s game management, or lack thereof, I remain far more frustrated with the Hogs’ special teams unit because Scott Fountain is well compensated for his role but has largely been saved by a single, true standout player (Cam Little), plus a couple of solid punters in Max Fletcher (some forget he was second-team All-SEC last year) and Devin Bale.
I do not think the defense cost us a single game this year, even Ole Miss, because that game was just an anomaly. Travis Williams gets a solid “B.” As for Bobby Petrino? I grade him about a hard “C” because while the offense was electric between the 20s, the mistakes and baffling play calls were too repetitive all season. It’s hard for me to think of an offensive player who got demonstrably better as the season progressed, too.
Matthew: Fly-by-night punditry is my stock and trade. When Sam Pittman said he believed linebacker was a position of strength on last year’s team I agreed. I thought we had a number of SEC types along the defensive line including the team’s only surefire NFL draft pick, defensive end Landon Jackson. Our secondary looked overmatched. The team stats confirm my suspicions, as Arkansas ranked dead last in the SEC in passing yards allowed, while ranking seventh in rushing yards allowed. How much of this was a lack of talent as opposed to coaching? I don’t know. On the other hand, the defense clearly kept Arkansas in a number of games: Auburn, A&M, Tennessee and Texas in particular. I would grade T-Will a little lower. Maybe a C+.
I am ride or die with Petrino. That’s a poor choice of words. But like the song from The Lost Boys says, “I Still Believe.” I will believe he is one of the best offensive coaches in the country until my dying day. I am bolstered in this opinion by Arkansas finishing third in the SEC in total yards/game. Did they finish lower in the points/game? Sure. But after the s*** show last year, Petrino doesn’t get enough credit for turning the team around. I give him a B+. Quarterback Taylen Green was getting better until his injury. I am cautiously optimistic this will continue into next season.
We agree on special teams. But I would say that I am optimistic about our position coaches moving forward, particularly the highly regarded tight end and offensive line coaches.
2. What is the best way to build a team in the current era? Arkansas seems to be pretty good at bringing in highly recruited players from other schools and turning them into All-SEC types, and in finding smaller school players who become very effective SEC players. Arkansas seems to be pretty bad at keeping its best recruits.
Beau: Sam Pittman’s strength and weakness has been the portal. He’s persuaded some really fine players to bring their skills to Fayetteville and yet been unable to preserve a roster year to year. Finding diamonds in the rough like Andrew Armstrong, Isaac TeSlaa and John Ridgeway is cool and all, but he’s done really well with in-conference transfers – like Drew Sanders (Alabama), Landon Jackson (LSU) and Xavian Sorey (Georgia). And given this present terrain, maybe harvesting SEC players is the way to do it, because Lane Kiffin sure seems committed to that approach.
Matthew: For a school like Arkansas, the portal is the way. Getting former four- and five-star recruits on campus, while also picking up guys who have overachieved at lower levels, feels very sustainable in the long run. If you look at the players who immediately agreed to come back for next season, the coaches identified the best players on the roster and said these are our guys. Everyone else can be replaced. It is risky, but understandable.
3. Speaking of Lane Kiffin, I don’t completely understand how Ole Miss gets not only our best transfers, but multiple highly ranked players in the portal. Does it just have a longer tradition of paying players? Is Lane Kiffin that much better of a recruiter of transfers?
Beau: Kiffin’s bold, if nothing else, and he knows that he now operates without guardrails. There is nothing to disincentivize poaching, so they’ve done it almost effortlessly while Arkansas seems stuck in neutral. He has seized upon what he perceives as the weakness in some of his rivals – they snared Walter Nolen from A&M and Kewan Lacy from Missouri, as non-Arkansas examples – by selling the best parts of his successful program, justifiably telling players at other universities that they could have it so much better in Oxford. In short? Yeah, I think he really is that much better at it, but I also do not think Pittman’s terrible at this aspect. The optics have been the worst part.
Matthew: I live by a modified version of Hanlon’s razor when it comes to my views on other programs and their success when it comes to recruiting. Never attribute to skill that which is adequately explained by circumventing rules. I believe schools like Ole Miss and others have a long and rich tradition of paying players. This involves a whole network of what were once known as bag men. If you never read this article about how paying players was done when it was against NCAA rules, do so now. I have no idea if the author made it all up, but it certainly sounded true. Am I to believe that all of those guys are now just sending their monthly check to Rebel Yell NIL (or whatever the hell it is called)? I believe those same guys are now spending their time poaching players on other teams. These are the “money vampires” Arkansas left tackle Fernando Carmona mentioned earlier this year. Why do some players enter the transfer portal and sign with a new school almost immediately? These guys. There is nothing new under the sun. The same guys who were cheating on behalf of schools before are just finding new ways to cheat on behalf of those schools now.
4. Are the offensive departures more of a comment of lack of faith in Taylen Green or in the program as a whole? Or something else entirely?
Beau: I seriously hope not, because anyone who watched this team knows that Taylen Green was rarely *the* problem. I reviewed all of his interceptions, and maybe three or four of them were total gaffes or misreads. Two pick-sixes reduced the team to .500: one at OSU which was a function of Green being clobbered by a free rusher, and another against LSU that was also terribly blocked and a product of bad luck and execution. He ran well when healthy, and it was unfair to him that he was saddled with what I believe was the worst receiver in the last five years of the program. I won’t be mean and say his name, but let’s just say his drops against OSU and Texas also betrayed his quarterback. Green is gifted, and I agree with Matthew that another year of him and Petrino working and meshing will be invaluable. If these offensive players are leaving because of the quarterback, I’d call it both stunning and appalling.
Matthew: I think we can chalk this up as a rare moment when two sports fans agree. I would go further and say that you have to give Pittman and Petrino credit for selecting Green, who I suspect was a less expensive addition than some of the other transfer quarterbacks last year.
5. How did you feel after Sam Pittman’s press conference on Dec. 12? I felt quite a bit better. As a reminder, Pittman addressed the number of players transferring out and asked the fanbase for patience.
Beau: Feeling “better” is relative given this program’s recent history, but yes, I do as well. Pittman made some notable missteps last year when he showed up for press conferences looking, sounding and even speaking defeated. This season, I thought he was upbeat and positive mostly, and the one bizarre thing he did (the Louis Vuitton/KMart analogy, which does remain awful) was actually explained away later. He’s still a likable man who truly loves the state and university he is representing. I think he also cannot escape his past: this remains his only head coaching job, and his best season to date was pre-NIL, so it does not take a lot for a rival coach to prey upon that. But since this outflux of players has occurred, he has handled the fallout pretty capably, and now that the influx is ongoing, maybe he can start cultivating momentum for 2025.
Matthew: We are now living through the Quantum Leap era of college football. Players keep jumping into programs hoping they have found the right one. The initial mass exodus was painful, but with each additional player the Razorbacks add, it feels like Pittman’s request for patience on the past of the fans was not just snake oil. From the outside, it looks like they had a plan about where they wanted to spend their money and have done so wisely.
Quantum Leap took ’80s TV to new heights
6. Are turnovers a reflection of poor coaching or is there a certain amount of randomness to them? I have read pieces in the past that suggest turnovers in the NFL have a high degree of randomness.
Beau: I think what bothered fans was the nature of the turnovers rather than their frequency (and while I graded Travis Williams’ defense higher than Matthew did, I concede that it was mystifyingly unable to get takeaways). I know several retired coaches who have bristled at my social media comments about this, suggesting those problems are almost always on the players. I think that may be true in the physical sense, but at times I felt predictable playcalling made it much easier for defenses to take gambles that usually succeeded. At various times, they knew we had one or more guys limping around the backfield, and they always knew we lacked downfield threats save for Armstrong. And he only had one damn touchdown, so it was a pretty simple decision for coordinators to come after Green when they knew the risk of him finding someone over the top was minimal.
Matthew: Arkansas finished tied at 112th in the country in turnover margin per game. A year before that, it was tied for 75th. A year before that, 69th. If I were still a gambling man, I would bet a large sum of money that Arkansas will finish far better than 112th next year in that stat. Will it be because of better coaching or better players? Possibly, but I believe turnovers are more a function of luck than most fans believe. And this year Arkansas was unlucky.
Questions about Sam Pittman
7. Is it possible Sam Pittman actually improves as a head coach and this is reflected on the field? How much of a drag was his bum hip?
Beau: Not sure about the hip and would hazard to speculate about how his overall health factored into his performance this fall. It clearly was a hindrance to him physically, and I really hope the surgery relieves some of that, because nobody deserves to have to ply their trade in pain.
It’s probably cliché, but I think this kind of adversity can make him better at his job. I think he’ll get a real boost from his 3-0 record in bowl games, too – it’s frankly hard to do that when so much insanity ensues right after Game 12 ends.
Matthew: Pittman doesn’t seem like the type of guy to make excuses, but he was pretty damn happy when talking about his surgically repaired hip in press conferences. As often happens, a Russian writer was on my mind when I asked this question.
“Clever people have been pointing out for a long time that happiness is like good health: when it’s there, you don’t notice it.” ― Mikhail Bulgakov, Morphine
I’m not that clever, but quoting superior writers is something of a skill. I can imagine Pittman’s coaching improves along with his health. Communicating with players and coaches a little better. Helping the other coaches prepare for games and being more perceptive during games at a higher level.
8. If Pittman announced he was matching NIL funds up to a million dollars like LSU’s Brian Kelly, would that be enough to get you to change your mind on anything?
Beau: Brian Kelly needs it badly for PR reasons, but Sam could benefit from showing he’s a participant AND a champion of the cause. I’m reminded of the Hair Club for Men President who boasted on TV ads in the 1980s that he was also a proud client. I am also not suggesting Sam attempt to replicate that promotional campaign, though it would be funny as hell and I got five on it.
Matthew: I would love to see VCR-quality Pittman ads on the air asking for Arkansas Edge donations that ended with him saying, “I’m not only head of the Arkansas Edge Football Program, but I’m also the main contributor.”
9. Do we think Arkansas would have done better in the transfer portal if it fired Sam Pittman after the Missouri game? Would you have fired him before the Missouri game?
Matthew: I think they would have done much, much worse. A mass exodus of current players followed by an influx of lesser talent. And Mississippi State would be making room for us in the SEC basement. How long it would take to dig out of a hole like that in the modern era is unknown.
Beau: Moot as it may be now, although I felt a firing would have been justified, Matthew is correct. The bleed would have lasted longer and the repair work would have been substantial. Pittman may have kept his job on that “what if” alone.
I do not think firing him at any point this season would have made sense. The Louisiana Tech game always loomed out there as win No. 6 once the Hogs wiped out Mississippi State. Had he somehow lost that, yes, fire away.
10. If the answer was after last season, would we have been better this season? What coach would you have preferred Arkansas hired?
Beau: Last season, I would have suggested a pretty full-throated pursuit of Barry Odom and I still would have felt that way had the brass made a change a couple of weeks ago. He’s a great coach, simply put, and I think he will get Purdue competitive again very quickly.
I do not feel like any particular candidate stands out as a potential successor to Pittman, and that is a function of NIL making it certain that none of us know what formula really works. If a gregarious, lunchpail kind of guy like Sam Pittman doesn’t succeed to your liking, then do you shift to youthful tactician? Old-school hardass? I have no clue and I am uncertain as to who really might.
Matthew: I am not sold on Odom as an upgrade. Eli Drinkwitz’s record at Missouri has been superior to Odom’s record at Missouri. Give me Pittman and the money we saved on his buyout every day of the week.
11. The last thought experiment I could come up with is how many current SEC coaches would you take over Sam Pittman?
Matthew: This question exposes my lack of faith in Pittman. I would choose Pittman over Mississippi State’s Jeff Lebby and Kentucky’s Mark Stoops. Otherwise, if Arkansas traded coaches with any other program in the SEC, I could talk myself into it being an upgrade. I am not sure it would be in all cases, but I would be open to being persuaded. I don’t think all would stay if they enjoyed the same success Sam Pittman had in prior seasons.
However, I don’t think there is any coach in the SEC who would guarantee a massive upgrade in success. Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin probably has the strongest argument, but he is at a program that is spending money like a drunken sailor in the portal.
Beau: Ok, this is actually really easy for me. Over Sam Pittman, I would choose Kirby Smart, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian. I’d throw Kalen DeBoer and Josh Heupel on that list too, simply based on results.
On the same plane as Sam, I’d place Mike Elko, Billy Napier, Clark Lea and Shane Beamer. As Matthew noted, you could make arguments here for Sam over one of these and then the reverse.
I’m happy to have Sam over Drinkwitz, Mark Stoops, Jeff Lebby, Brent Venables, Hugh Freeze and Brian Kelly.
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