After losing to BYU, a segment of the fan base is ready to throw in the towel on the season.
“The old saying, some teams can beat you two or three times if you let them,” Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said on Monday during his weekly press conference. “We just can’t do that. At some point today, we’ve got to let it go. I do know this, the busier you are preparing for the next game, the easier it is on you. In other words, kind of block out all the noise that’s going on.”
The next four games are murderer’s row, even with a ‘down’ SEC and Arkansas likely won’t be favored in any of them.
It’s oddly reminiscent of 2015, when coincidentally Dan Enos was in his first year as the Razorback offensive coordinator and Sam Pittman was then just the offensive line coach.
Arkansas had lost to Toledo, Texas Tech and Texas A&M in consecutive games and had their backs against the wall going to Knoxville the first weekend of October.
Tennessee was still figuring it out in the Butch Jones era, but ended up going 9-4 and finishing in the top 25 that year.
But the Razorbacks got the upper hand of the Volunteers that night, winning 24-20 for their first win in Knoxville since 1992. It set the stage for them to win four of their next five (only losing to eventual national champion Alabama) and nearly win out, as they got a chip shot field goal blocked against Mississippi State that would’ve likely won that game.
Does this mean that Arkansas is fixing to win three of these next four games and all is well? Of course not.
Pittman has coached long enough, though, to know that all it takes is a little belief and preparation.
“To me, it goes back into the preparation of it,” Pittman said. “I’m going to tell them what we have to do to beat LSU today. That’s what we’ve got to go do in practice. If you waste a day, we haven’t. Last year when we got beat by Liberty, I think the next game was LSU and we actually played really good. You may say you didn’t play well offensively. We were dealt a hand (KJ was out) and got beat 13-10. I think we’ll do the same thing. We’ve got to get our pride back.”
There is no time to waste. Even after Arkansas finishes that four-game stretch, they still have Mississippi State at home, then travel to Florida and host Auburn before finishing with FIU and Missouri.
“I think this is as good a team as we’re going to play,” Pittman said. “But I think this will define a little bit where we’re at and how we go Saturday night. We go to prepare hard for it. If we get prepared, it will be a hell of a game.”