There’s probably no more fitting place to start a column on Arkansas football these days than the Underworld. That realm pervades the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, an ancient Greek tragedy in which Orpheus has the opportunity to rescue his wife, Eurydice, from the the dark and shadowy below. The only condition is that he must walk out in front of Eurydice and not turn around until they both reach their escape. That’s it. There are no monsters to slay, feats of physical strength to overcome, or riddles to solve. All he has to do is not turn around.
SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t gotten around to this story over the last 3,000 years.
As they reach the end, Orpheus turns around before Eurydice crosses the finish line, and he lost her forever.
That brings us, naturally, back to Arkansas football. An obvious deficiency for the Hogs not just in the Missouri game but all season has been taking care of the football. Arkansas leads the country in fumbles this season. I’m not suggesting that keeping the ball off the ground is as simple as not turning around, but that doesn’t stop anyone watching the Razorbacks to stop screaming “hold onto the ball!” All you have to do is hold on to the ball! By the same token, all you have to do is not jump offsides when they’re in 3rd-and-long! All you have to do is not hold onto a defender’s jersey when the play has moved to another part of the field!
Losing the turnover battle directly cost Arkansas multiple games this season. X user Parker Fleming (aka @statsowar) has published a chart each week this season called “Did We Really Get Beat That Bad?” which shows the results of each game each week as determined by the net success rate of all the plays each team ran. Not always, but most of the time, the team that wins this statistic wins the game. Of course, you can count on the Razorbacks for statistical anomalies.
Success rate is defined as gaining at least 50% of necessary yardage on first down (usually 5 yards), gaining at least 70% of necessary yardage on 2nd down, and 100% of necessary yardage on 3rd down. To see how Fleming’s chart works, here’s the Week 12 graphic showing Arkansas winning the success rate battle against Texas:
The Razorbacks won the success rate battle against Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Texas (the Missouri chart hasn’t been posted yet). As we all know, the Hogs also lost all of those games.
As happy as Arkansas fans would be this season if games were decided solely by success rate, we all know football is more complicated. Success rate does show how efficient a team can be, and at their best, Sam Pittman’s Arkansas teams (including this 2024 squad) are talented enough to compete at high levels.
Malachi Singleton Exits Stage Right
That talent was obvious in the way younger players would occasionally flash in big moments. Take, for instance, the way redshirt freshman Malachi Singleton guided Arkansas at the end of a huge win vs Tennessee in the face of a previously stalwart Vols defense and an insult about his football IQ lobbed by broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit. Singleton, who announced his entry into the transfer portal on Monday, also showed out vs Ole Miss’ starters in the second half of an otherwise depressing loss to the Rebels.
Singleton’s ability to finish strong on those two occasions stood in stark contrast to the overall theme of the season. Unfortunately, all too often, the Hogs as a whole found ways to screw it up whether it be a fumble, interception, muffed punt, missed field goal, or the coaches making foolish decisions.
The Greek Orpheus and Euridice story was adapted into an excellent musical titled Hadestown a few years ago. These lyrics from the show seem apt for the Hogs:
The meanest dog you’ll ever meet
He ain’t the hound dog in the street
He bares some teeth and tears some skin
But, brother, that’s the worst of him
The dog you really got to dread
Is the one that howls inside your head
It’s him whose howling drives men mad
And a mind to its undoing
As difficult as competing against the likes of the Longhorns, Aggies, Tigers, and others are each year, the Razorbacks have proven capable of competing with them, but the Hogs’ mental mistakes prove too costly.
All indications are that Pittman will be retained for a sixth season in 2025. On Tuesday, it was reported that Bobby Petrino would more likely stick around as offensive coordinator too, given that he’d withdrawn his name from consideration from the Charlotte head coaching job. If Pittman, Petrino and Williams do all indeed return, it begs a very simple question: what will be different? What can fans point to and expect things to be better? What can Pittman and his staff do differently to establish a mindset to help the team take better care of the football?
The players already have the physical strength to do so. What can they do to drill into the players’ heads that a fumble can wipe out all the other good work that they otherwise do?
That answer could determine Pittman’s fate in 2025. It’s hard to say that a specific number of wins will keep him safe. Is returning to bowl eligibility with another 6-6 season going to keep him safe? Does he survive to Week 3 if he loses to Arkansas State in War Memorial Stadium in Week 2? Many thought Pittman might be fired after the disastrous 2023 season, but he was not. Many fans think he should be fired now, but apparently he will not be. Given that these results are acceptable, or at the very least, not bad enough to warrant paying a large buyout and starting fresh, what is the cutoff? There may not be one.
It’s impossible to know the answers to those questions right now without figuring out a way to give UA athletic director Hunter Yurachek truth serum.
From reading fan commentary online and in social media, it feels like apathy is strong. Then again, Razorback Stadium drew nice crowds this season – even late in the year after the disappointing losses mounted. It doesn’t feel like fans have thrown in the towel on Pittman, even if they’re no longer excited or confident in his ability to take the football program any further than he’s already taken it.
Often, the decision to retain or fire coaches is not so much about what the coach deserves. It’s about giving the program a spark. It’s about generating energy in the fan base, even if it’s not as dramatic of an add as Lionel Messi joining FC Miami. What a difference Messi has made there, both on the field and in MLS odds.
Petrino’s arrival landed Taylen Green from Boise State a few weeks later. Even if you believed Taylen Green was the man for the starting QB job, Singleton’s transfer portal exit takes away a bit of buzz going into next season and just feels to like it’s par for the course with Arkansas football. Of course one of the most promising younger Razorbacks will end up killing it at his next stop as a starter at some point place like Florida State. And of course Razorback fans will be plagued further by that most insidious of diseases: slow-burn regret.
More on Arkansas Football’s Cutoff in 2025
Let’s look at the other side of the coin now: Maybe, just maybe, Green improves so much in the offseason and the even younger backup KJ Jackson fills in nicely for Singleton. In that case, it’s worth pondering what would happen if Pittman reels off 7, 8 or 9 games. We can say he needs to win 8 games next year, but what if the team starts out 8-0 and then closes the season 0-4 while discovering new and creative ways to generate heartbreaking losses? Or if they give up 60 points to Ole Miss again?
I’ve always believed the feeling around the program does not necessarily correlate with a total win number. If Arkansas didn’t collapse against Oklahoma State back in Week 2, but the rest of the season played out the same, do we feel much different about the program? Maybe, but I would argue not much. Beating the Cowboys wouldn’t have made getting blown out by LSU and Ole Miss any less agonizing.
Arkansas’ 2025 schedule is, as always, very difficult. The non-conference schedule features a long-awaited date in Fayetteville with Notre Dame, a road trip to Memphis and the aforementioned dance with the Red Wolves (who will obviously give that game everything they have) added to the usual SEC slate. Instead of building excitement for many of those games, right now it feels almost like a punishment to have to play them because confidence in Pittman and Arkansas football is low in the fumes of a pretty disappointing November.
Pittman has claimed that the new revenue sharing model will boost his staff’s ability to recruit high-level talent, and hopefully he’s right. But as fast or as strong or as agile as those players turn out to be, will they be effectively coached to hold on to the ball or to play without committing penalties?
Of course, as we get closer to next season and farther away from this one, optimism will grow. Arkansas will recruit new players, current players will get better, we’ll read glowing practice reports, and think about whether we should donate to NIL, or maybe debate how much. Maybe this time, it’ll be different. Maybe this time, they’ll take advantage of their opportunities. Maybe this time, they’ll win more games.
It’s a sad tale.
It’s a tragedy.
It’s a sad song.
But we sing it anyway.
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More on the transfer of Malachi Singleton, including how it could be a silver lining for the Hogs starting at 6:15:
More on Arkansas football from BoAS:
