In response to the resent backlash of fans, taking out their anger against head coach Sam Pittman and the Arkansas football program on social media following Saturday’s loss to BYU, football legend Darren McFadden has come to the coach’s defense.
After Pittman responded publicly this week, denouncing personal attacks against his players, McFadden took to Facebook on Thursday to state that it’s “Something I agree with coach on 100%.”
McFadden’s post continued, “It’s fine if u don’t like me AS a COACH or PLAYER but no need for personal insults. One of the reasons I don’t look into coaching. I could go from all American all everything Arkansan to who knows what names these social media warriors will come up with.”
He then ended the post with, “But as always GO HOGS #neveryield.”
Arkansas relinquished a two-possession, second-half lead in a 38-31 loss to the Cougars, incurring some self-inflicted, on-field errors, and 14 uncharacteristic penalties for 125 yards. It didn’t help matters, when BYU wideout Chase Roberts made a one-handed catch in the end zone, with eight minutes left, to give the Cougars the game-winning points.
In a statement Pittman made earlier this week, he admitted that he felt the fans’ frustration after the loss and understood the negative “opinions” that were offered. But he drew the line with the personal attacks against his players.
“It’s hard,” Pittman said in his statement. “It’s not my job, it’s my life. It’s what you do. Everybody don’t know you as a regular person. The kids are the same way. It’s hard because the addition of social media and the addition of, not opinions so much, but negative.
“It used to be like ‘You’ve got to do better’ not ‘You suck. You’re fat. You’re this,’ Now the comments really have nothing to do with what happened in the game.”
After relentless personal attacks earlier in the week, Pittman was forced to disable his Twitter profile.
Although many fans have remained in support of the program, there are those few that feel the need to unload all of life’s frustration on a football coach and players, who came to Arkansas to represent the university.
To put things in perspective, the program has struggled to overcome the backlash of former head coach Bobby Petrino’s unethical transgressions back in 2012. Pittman was hired in 2020 to take over for Chad Morris, who went 4-20 and could not win a single SEC game (0-18) in his two seasons at the helm.
Pittman has gone 21-18 in his first three-plus years in Fayetteville, including 10-16 in the SEC. He has also won both bowl games he has coached in, and has the program on much firmer footing than what it was when he took over.
He has also had to deal with the inner-workings of the transfer portal and overcome a coaching carousel. The Razorbacks have two new coordinators this season.
BYU appears to be a solid Power-5 team in the Big 12, and although Arkansas had many opportunities to defeat them, the loss doesn’t compare to Morris’ losses to Colorado State, North Texas and Western Kentucky. Pittman is 11-0 against non-Power 5 teams, not ranked in the Top 25.