If I ever read an article or hear a soundbite of Paul Finebaum, it’s by accident. And most every time I do ingest a Finebaum take, I cringe. “Overrated” and “annoying” are the best ways I can describe the longtime scribe/talks show host. Calling him “The Voice of the SEC” is a reach at best. His reach barely crosses the Alabama borders, and don’t get me started about when ESPN asks his opinion about national college matters.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I read one of his takes Wednesday and not only didn’t gag, but I actually agreed with him. Hell definitely got chilly.
Like CBS college football writer Barrett Sallee did earlier (I’ll get to him in a minute), Finebaum was reluctantly negative about Arkansas coach Sam Pittman’s future. “You do feel badly,” Finebaum recently said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning.
“Here’s a guy that got a great opportunity, and he had one good year, and it’s been a mess ever since. For Sam Pittman to be taken seriously, you have to start a sentence with something other than, ‘I like Sam Pittman but…’ That’s when you know you’re going off the cliff.”
Bobby Petrino’s Return
Finebaum then called the rationale behind hiring former disgraced Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator “fascinating.”
“The fact that it made everybody so excited is a bad look for Pittman,” he opined. “There’s nothing Pittman has done in the past three years that has really excited anybody. If you bring in the disgraced former head coach as your coordinator, and that energizes your fanbase, that’s telling me that he’s there for a reason. And the reason is to take over for Sam Pittman.”
You’ll remember, I was one of the few Arkansas media members who criticized Petrino’s hire back in late November. I was, as one Arkansas football fan told me at the time, “the only fish swimming upstream.” Now, though, Finebaum and I are completely on the same page. That felt awful to write, but it’s true.
I defended Pittman last October and wrote it would be wrong to fire him based on the dumpster fire he took over and doing it amidst the pandemic. However, he does have to own last season. It was horrible. And the blame falls on his shoulders. He never should have hired Dan Enos. That was a friend taking care of another one.
The offensive line should have never been that bad under his watch, being a former O-line coach. He shouldn’t have been a deer in headlights or admitted to that when Arkansas lost to lowly Mississippi State, and he shouldn’t have let the locker room fall apart. Arkansas should have been a bowl team last year even with Luke Hasz going down with a season-ending injury. And they weren’t because Pittman made some terrible mistakes starting with that Dan Enos hire.
Sam Pittman on the Hot Seat
Being the standup guy he is from small-town Oklahoma, he hasn’t shied away from ownership of one of the most disappointing seasons in Hogs football history. He’s been criticized, and he knows he deserves it. He also knows he should have a second chance, and he is getting one. One last chance. Win or go to the lake house in Hot Springs. Maybe win and go to the lake house and retire, but that is a subject for another column. It seems that Pittman is motivated by this second chance and might have learned from it. It would hurt him a great deal to be fired.
If you evaluate him based on last year and what he’s done other than the 9-4 season in 2021, you wouldn’t have much hope for the Hogs to win this fall given their schedule’s brutality. That’s what Barrett Sallee is basing his opinion on when he predicted that Pittman will be the first college head coach to be fired this season, which are odds found both in sportsbooks in the states and abroad as found on NonGamStopCasinos.org. He’s banking on Arkansas losing to preseason Top 25-ranked Oklahoma State and losing the first two conference games at Auburn and Texas A&M at Arlington, Texas.
I don’t always agree with Sallee when he makes appearances on 103.7 The Buzz’s The Zone show, but he makes a solid case. Arkansas won’t be favored in any of its first seven games other than the opener against FCS Arkansas-Pine Bluff and UAB, so predicting a putrid record to start the season is pretty easy, especially based on how last year went.
Optimism for Arkansas Football
But I’ve had a chance to do something that Finebaum, Sallee or many of the national critics haven’t done. I’ve talked to the players and a handful of committed recruits. They all seem to know something we on the outside don’t. When I spoke to receiver Isaiah Sategna, tight end Luke Hasz and defensive end Landon Jackson last month, they all agreed the locker room is tighter.
There seems to be a good, cohesive feeling in the football complex. My reporter’s hunch is that will make a difference on the field. Some of those close games that were lost last season were a product of a lack of togetherness, especially when the inevitable hardships struck. Jackson strikes me as a guy who can help bridge that gap as a senior leader. All the players also mentioned that the transferring players not only brought an upgrade of talent but blended in nicely with the core group.
When Little Rock Parkview’s Quentin Murphy and Cam Settles committed to Arkansas this summer, I was at their announcements. One of the things I asked immediately was if they were worried about Pittman’s future with this season being make-or-break. Both said they were not nervous. Murphy was particularly confident the Hogs will win this year.
Hog commit Grayson Wilson echoed that sentiment in July: “I really believe in the coaching staff, and I really believe in Coach Petrino, and I think they are going to turn it around,” Wilson told me after a team camp at Bryant. “I’ve sat in the room with Coach Petrino and seen the offense. It is the offense he has had, but it is the offense he is putting in. I think with the personnel on the football team right now, they will get things turned around.”
The three current Hogs were also adamant that this team can win a bowl game. The fact that Pittman’s job is on the line is another motivating factor to close out games to guarantee at least six wins.
“We’ve got his back,” Jackson said.
While Finebaum and Sallee make good points, I’m beginning to think my initial 4-8 predicted record may be too low. My ceiling would still be six, but if Arkansas can find a way to beat OSU, the path to six wins opens because that gives the Hogs almost an automatic chance to be 4-0 in the non-conference. In that case, two SEC wins notches bowl eligibility. Hard to believe the second game of the season may be the biggest, but it’s pretty clear it is. A win there may make Arkansas more confident against Auburn and Texas A&M.
I just looked up from my computer to my big-screen TV and saw Finebaum on ESPN’s First Take. Thank God the thing is muted. I’d probably throw up or agree with him – which is even worse.
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More Media Fun with Arkansas Football
Speaking of recognizable voices in sports media, two of the most recognizable in Arkansas are teaming up for a new show.
This is the first time that Bo Mattingly and Chuck Barrett will work as co-hosts in the industry since they assumed different jobs with with the Razorbacks, however. That UA affiliation has led at least one hand-wringing fan to accuse them of being “corporate shills” who will be essentially muzzled on-air.
Mattingly knows that there’s an impression out there that he unfairly supported or hated on specific former Arkansas football coaches.
He’s taken a shot from one fan, for instance, who insisted “I shoved Chad Morris down Arkansas fans’ throats, and I kept them from hiring [Mike] Norvell,” Mattingly told Best of Arkansas Sports.
More here:
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More coverage of Arkansas football from BoAS…
