Arkansas coach Sam Pittman has turned Hogs elite

Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman has done the unthinkable with the Razorbacks program.

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Less than two calendar years ago, the hiring of Sam Pittman to be the head coach at Arkansas was met with pause nationwide.

He was a offensive line coach. One of the best in the nation, granted, but he was not a coordinator or a previous head coach. It was offensive line and associate head coach duties. National pundits were…curious, let’s call it.

Almost everyone around the Arkansas program was good with the hire. Better than good, even. The forked tongue of Chad Morris was cut out and replaced with blunt honesty and – what’s this – kindness!?

Turns out human decency helps bring young athletes together. Who knew?

Arkansas is 4-0 with two top-15 wins through four games of the 2021 season. The Razorbacks, 4-0. As a friend texted this morning, “If you’d have told me Arkansas would be ranked No. 11 after four games this year, I’d have thought you were on bath salts.” Some predicted it. But the only ones who did are the same ones who predict 8-4 or better every year.

The reality is that Arkansas had no business being this good this fast. Not without Pittman.

A first-year starting quarterback. Offensive and defensive lines that were among the worst, statistically, in the nation last year. Utter inexperience after the starters at wideout and running back.

But there was Pittman, no longer quite the same guy from the Bielema era who would enter the meeting room for question-and-answer get-togethers with reporters with his feet up on the desk. Not from that, either, though.

He gets defensive about his players, not himself. If he says “we” when making a remark about how the Hogs need to improve, he will almost always double back and alter it by changing the “we” to “I.”

Pittman takes ownership for the losses and defers praise for the wins. He’s not a robotic automaton like Morris and he’s not quite as visually emotionally as Bielema. He wins more than both.

It remains to be seen how many wins the Hogs can accrue in 2021. Eight? Nine? More? The schedule was rated as the most difficult in the nation in the preseason for a reason. Frankly, not sure it matters.

Arkansas is officially back. They’re not a laughingstock. They’re not a pretender. And while they may not be a national-title contender just yet, they’re as close to that as they’ve been in a decade and that’s something to take pride in.

Turn that damn jukebox on, indeed.