The world is a funny place. Two things can be simultaneously true, yet untrue at the same time.
The way people talk about America, they should talk about their favorite sports teams. The “love it or leave it” phenomenon is a wild one and posits that stating a desire to have the thing one allegedly loves alter in some way is worthy of scorn. Changing something would mean the person seeking the alteration doesn’t love it.
It is not new, is quite stupid and yet still exists.
The last 48 hours have seen too many people in the Arkansas fan base calling for coach Sam Pittman’s proverbial head. They want him fired.
A seven-point loss.
With Arkansas the de facto No. 27 team in the nation before the game.
The Razorbacks looked, well, not great against Brigham Young on Saturday. Most notably, the offensive line needs serious adjustments. That’s on Pittman, certainly, as a former offensive line guru before he became a head coach. The number of penalties were massive, too. Fourteen for 125 yards is unacceptable. Bad decision-making in play-calling resulted in too many good starts for the BYU offense.
Plenty went sideways for Arkansas. Some of it looked systemic. Some of it looked like hiccups. In a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, the former matters to fan bases more than the latter. Arkansas, a program perpetually around .500, somehow expects nine wins. Eight at the very worst. Don’t get it? See ya later.
In these 39 years on Earth, about 30 of which have spent within 30 miles of the University of Arkansas, I have never understood the zealots who believe that.
Pittman, however, did not exactly do himself any favors after the game. His failure to own the play-calling decision, specifically, not only looked bad but actively was bad. Keeping quarterback KJ Jefferson, a captain and fifth-year senior on the verge of breaking all sorts of school passing records, away from the microphone was also out of order.
They were weird decisions on Pittman’s part. He has made a habit of being honest (within the realities of the job) with fans and media. Hedging and insincerity are the traits of a person feeling attacked, someone circling the wagons.
The truth is Pittman could be doing it because he knows the Razorbacks aren’t good enough this year. If that’s the case – and it very well looks like it could be, given everything that needs tweaking or fixed – so be it. Then maybe, on the heels of a 4-8 season or the like, job statuses can be revisited.
That’s in 10 weeks, though, not September 18. For one week, at least, can everyone just step back, take a breath and see what happens? Or are we, as a populace, too far gone, too angry to even do that anymore?