Back in mid-October, when the Arkansas football team was in the midst of what would be a six-game losing streak, pitchforks and torches were being prepared in sheds across the Natural State. The proverbial ‘they’ were getting ready to come for Sam Pittman’s job.
We said then that Pittman was not in actual trouble. The castle walls were too high, so to speak. Athletic director Hunter Yurachek was not going to sacrifice his first football head coach hire to the seething masses.
When Pittman offered up offensive coordinator Dan Enos as hecatomb, the heathens’ march slowed to a walk. As Arkansas finally snapped that skid last week against Florida, they just sort of got bored and turned around to go home, not putting the tools of revolution back into the attic just yet, though, lest the Razorbacks falter in their final three games.
Even if they do, Pittman is shielded. Yurachek said as much earlier Thursday at the Hawgs Illustrated Sports Club.
“I have all the faith in Sam Pittman as our head coach,” the AD said.
His words were more, to the tune of the program had to do something and that something was done with the firing of Enos and the Razorbacks’ subsequent response on-field. Such actions were enough to keep Pittman onboard for another year.
Yurachek didn’t say that outright, of course. He’d be crazy to explicitly commit to something or someone more than a day in advance. If Bobby Petrino’s disaster taught nothing else, it taught athletic directors the folly of loyalty. Now, they get none and they receive none in return. Just the way it should be.
“Isn’t Yurachek holding on to Pittman because of loyalty?” No. He isn’t. Pittman is still the Arkansas coach and will remain the Arkansas coach because his record deserves another season. The Hogs are not some blueblood of the sport, after all.
Their status won’t stop the rabble, always spoiling for hostility toward leadership (or their perceived lack of it from the people supposed to be in it), from getting bored of being bored, though. Just don’t expect them to make any difference ever soon in the decision-making process.