In an world where Arkansas football influencers are constantly providing information and teasers based on anonymous sources whose identities always remain mysterious, it’s nice to see a place where some of those insiders aren’t afraid to let others know who they are.
One of those places, it appears, is the “Wu Pig Podcast” which features the most lit intro beat in the history of Razorback shows and a rapidly growing YouTube channel that is earning the trust of Razorback players and their families. At least a few of them, anyway, as wide receiver Andrew Armstrong’s recent appearance on the show indicates.
No doubt, these guys are entertaining. There’s “Big Sexy,” for instance, getting things started taking a swig out of his gold cup. “We gonna be sippin'”, he promises.
Things get very interesting, quite quickly, in the latest podcast in part titled “FAVOR[I]TISM REASON PLAYERS AND PARENTS UPSET AT PITTMAN.”
A lot of the talk centers on stuff that you’d hear at the barbershop or around the water cooler – reasons why specific players like Jordan Crook, Chris Paul and Bryce Stephens jumped into the transfer portal. Given all those players are no longer with the team, it would not be a stretch to imagine that they would have some kind of beef with at least one Arkansas football coach. That kind of response would be natural since clearly staying with the Hogs wasn’t a good fit.
Plus, sports is a meritocracy, so it stands to reason that head coaches show a kind of “favoritism” when they spend more type recruiting a high four-star kid and a two-star kid or name one guy a starter over the other. The only problem with “favoritism” is when it’s shown to those who don’t deserve it.
All the same, players and their families and their families don’t have the same kind of platform to truly speak their minds in the Arkansas football media landscape that coaches do, who get their thoughts blasted out on a hundred different outlets every time they step to the podium for a press conference.
Random posts on social media don’t give the full story, and what the “Wu Pig” podcasters are trying to do is provide some entertainment and bigger context gleaned from the insight of all the folks they are talking to. It doesn’t take too long to see why Razorbacks would quickly come to trust them.
And even recently dismissed Razorbacks, at that.
Sam Mbake Apparently Speaks Up
Sam Mbake was a four-star receiver from the class of 2022 who turned out down offers from the likes of Florida, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Penn State and USC to come to Arkansas.
In his freshman season, he carved out a role for himself on special teams, playing 72 total snaps across three different units — kickoff coverage (41), punt return (17) and punt coverage (14).
Heading into this season, though, it appeared Mbake was ready to rock.
He made a lot of plays during spring ball and looked primed to have a breakout sophomore campaign as part of the two-deep at wide receiver, if not as a starter.
“He’s going to be able to help us,” Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman said early in fall camp. “Mbake is a wonderful person and he plays 90 mph all the time and it’s important to him. He has improved in every aspect of his game — speed, strength, awareness of what he’s doing. Mbake will be on the field as much as anybody this year.”
Unfortunately, that never came to fruition because he suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Razorbacks’ first scrimmage of fall.
In late December, Mbake was dismissed from the team for an undisclosed reason but he it looks like he still follows the scene as a user named “Samuel Mbake” popped up in the middle of the most recent “Wu Pig” podcast.
He shared some of his mind, including why he was dismissed: “It was speeding ticket I swear to god.”
Yes, this is unconfirmed – both the reason for the dismissal and the identity of the user, but given how plugged in the “Wu Pig” podcasters are, it’s way more likely this is actually Mbake than not.
He also wanted folks to know that he was going to show out in 2023, if not for the injury.
“Just go back to the spring, the[y] brought in three receivers to replace me and I still went fed [laughing emoji],” the user named “Samuel Mbake” wrote.
Then this doozy in reference to former offensive coordinator Dan Enos: “If I played I swear to god enos keeps his job… I’m a different type of reciever everyone know.” Now that’s quite the claim. Enos was really, really bad.
Still, if you want to get that proverbial bacon sizzlin’, getting former players to open up like this is sure way way to do it.
Mbake also wanted Razorback fans to know one last thing during his appearance:
Arkansas Football and Sources
Given how much is unconfirmed here, you may roll your eyes at the idea of big-time fans developing a go-to show in the world of Razorback sports.
It’s easy to doubt they are really as plugged in with former and current players and their families as they let on. But co-host “Big Sexy” has a message for you if you think like that:
“Let me give you a little background of our culture, brother. The barbershop, when you see everything happening out here on the streets, it be people out watching, people knowing what’s going on. They don’t talk to the police, they don’t talk to reporters, they don’t talk to nobody else.”
“But they’ll come to the barbershop and be like, ‘Hey, y’all know who did that around there. You know so-and-so did that because I was out there and I seen them do it.’ So don’t question what we telling you. You can take it for what you want to, but we told you this the barbershop and the streets be talking. We give to you.”
“We don’t work for nobody. We don’t work for the folks [at channel] 7, 11 or 16. I don’t work for the University of Arkansas. I don’t work for none of those folks. So I can give it to you raw and uncut.”
Make sure to listen to the “Wu Pig” video below. It’s a lot, more than (2!) hours, but here are some time markers you may want to see:
36:11 Talk of reason why Bryce Stephens jumped into the transfer portal immediately
41:57 – Talk of the situation with Ty Washington
51:50 – Extremely passionate plea to not bring Hudson Clark back
54:40 – Why it’s a good thing Hogs got bobby Petrino to prevent “wasting of talent”
59:00 – One part were Mbake is chiming in
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