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What Arkansas football did this season is nothing short of incredible.
Whether one is a die-hard Hogs fan or a casual observer, consider, for a moment, how Arkansas coach Sam Pittman and this band of players turned things for the Razorbacks.
They were a team, just two calendar years ago, coming off their worst season in school history and finishing up one with the exact same record. Circling the drain. Athletic director Hunter Yurachek went into the winter needing to make a splash with his next hire after firing Chad Morris.
The college football world thought he was nuts for hiring Pittman, a man who had never been a head coach at the college level. Pittman’s 3-7 season doesn’t look good simply by the numbers, but anyone who watched the Razorbacks play in 2020 knew they were improved and trending upward.
But no one – save only those wearing the reddest of rose-colored glasses – thought Arkansas would be 8-4 with a bid to the Outback Bowl at the end of 2021. The Hogs have never played in that bowl. They were always too poor (or, for two seasons, too good) to do so.
Not anymore. Pittman used a first-year starting quarterback, a group of running backs who were largely second-name guys, some wideouts who were complementary outside their star, a makeshift offensive line with one NFL prospect, a defensive line that was abused in the previous years, a batch of overachieving linebackers, a secondary with only potential and some of the most unheralded special teams players in the SEC and he took them to the brink. Recall, three of Arkansas’ four losses came to two teams in the College Football Playoff and another ranked No. 7 in the country.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, in a move that suggested this isn’t just one-off good season, former five-star wide receiver Jadon Haselwood announced he was transferring to Oklahoma to play for the Hogs.
All of those years wondering what Arkansas could be if they just had the right fit are over. The 2021 was only the beginning.
If Sam Pittman stays.
Pony up, Yurachek, for your coach needs to get paid.