Sam Pittman says Arkansas has 'a lot to play for' against Missouri
Sam Pittman isn’t glancing over the Missouri Tigers, believing there’s still a lot to play for as the Arkansas Razorbacks take the field.
While Pittman’s squad may already be bowl eligible, the coach recognizes that a lot could change for the better with another victory on their resume.
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“I think so, I mean we’ve got a lot to play for,” the Arkansas leader answered, asked if the Razorbacks could match the Tigers’ intensity level on Saturday. “There’s a lot of differences in 7-5, 6-6 bowl-wise. Obviously if we can get to No. 4 in the conference, like we were last year. The top half of the conference, like we did a year ago. I think simply because it’s our rival game is a big deal, and we haven’t beaten them there since we’ve joined the SEC. I think there’s a lot of things, like we haven’t beaten them back to back.
“I think there’s just a lot of things that we have to play for, and our kids understand that and we talked about it last night.”
It hasn’t been an easy season for Sam Pittman and the Hogs, but Arkansas can end their regular season with a bang on Saturday with a victory over Missouri.
Sam Pittman glad to have the pressure off with Arkansas being bowl eligible
Alas, the road to bowl eligibility was long and competitive for Arkansas football. The Razorbacks actually got off to a pretty hot start but dropped a few games they shouldn’t to put their postseason hopes in jeopardy. However, this past weekend, the Hogs took care of business against a ranked Ole Miss squad to seal that sixth victory and send them through to a bowl game.
Sam Pittman knows that his team may not end up in a very desire-able bowl game or destination, but he’s just relieved to know that he’ll at least be going to one.
“I didn’t say what bowl, I just said we wanted to go to a bowl,” Pittman said after the Ole Miss win. Though, he’d rather go to the Cotton Bowl than something like the Birmingham Bowl.
“I think it’s big, you know, and I’ve got some heck because I said one of our goals is to go bowling, and one of our goals is to go to a bowl. You know, you can go to the Fiesta Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, the Cotton Bowl. I mean, there’s a lot of bowls. Obviously, we want to go to the best possible bowl we can go to. And the more wins the better the better possibility of bowls, you get more, you know. And so we want to win, obviously.”
Arkansas still has a chance to play for better bowl positioning in the final week of the year. The Hogs face cross-divisional rival and stately neighbor Missouri in the final week of the year. It’s a matchup between two squads fighting for similar bowl spots, except Missouri sits at just 5-6 and needs to beat Arkansas at home in order to keep their season alive. However, a win would not only make the Tigers bowl eligible, but one would think that they’d jump Arkansas in the hierarchy of bowl eligible teams and get to a slightly better one than the Hogs.
Sam Pittman’s team has the weight off their shoulders with getting to six wins, but Pittman’s still ready to coach an exciting matchup against a desperate Missouri side in a rivalry matchup.
“Missouri’s a rival of us and they’re playing really good ball. But so, I’m sure it’ll be a great game,” said Pittman. Ought to be. 3:30 p.m. ET this Saturday for the Battle Line Rivalry with bowl implications on the line.
On3’s Alex Weber contributed to this article.