An early 2023 offseason checkup: What's going on at Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M?
The initial transfer portal window has closed. The coaching carousel hasn’t totally stopped, but it’s unlikely to start seriously spinning again until after the second National Signing Day in February. Spring practices will start in six weeks for lots of teams.
So in the interim, it seems like a perfect opportunity for a temperature check on several head coaches trying to navigate their programs through some rough waters after disappointing 2022 seasons and shaky starts to the 2023 offseason.
To be clear, this is not some early hot-seat list for 2023. But it is akin to a doctor’s checkup on a couple coaches and schools taking it on the chin right now.
I don’t think Sam Pittman, Mike Gundy at or even Jimbo Fisher (insert buyout jokes here) are in any real danger of being fired next season, but all three coaches are presiding over programs that have left plenty asking, “What the heck is going on right now at Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M?”
Let’s take a look…
Sam Pittman, Arkansas
The Razorbacks were among the media’s darkhorse darlings in 2022, but it’s not been a particularly fun year for Sam Pittman’s Hogs ever since they beat Penn State in the Outback Bowl to close the 2021 season.
Let’s start backward, it’s been a “Last one out the door, turn off the lights, please” start to the 2023 offseason for Pitman’s Razorbacks.
If you’re counting at home, 26 players have left the program since December — including seven starters and a couple of other key contributors in the transfer portal.
That doesn’t include outside linebacker Drew Sanders and wideout Jadon Haselwood, who are both entering the NFL Draft, or the team’s leading receiver Matt Landers (901 yards and eight touchdowns, who exhausted his collegiate eligibility.
Among those transferring include valuable pieces like defensive backs Myles Slusher (Colorado) and Jalen Catalon (Texas) and Arkansas’ second-best pass rusher Jordan Domineck (7.5 sacks, 9.5 TFLs), who is also headed to play for Deion Sanders in Boulder.
Starting tight end Trey Knox (South Carolina) and wideout Ketron Jackson, a former blue-chip recruit headed to Baylor, bolted Fayetteville despite being primed for bigger roles in 2023. Backup quarterback/Swiss Army wideout Malik Hornsby transferred to Texas State for a starting role, too.
Now, it hasn’t been all bad. Pittman has done a nice job adding a couple of key plug-and-play transfers (headliners include Missouri edge Trajan Jeffcoat, Baylor corner Lorando Johnson, Bowling Green wideout Tyrone Broden and Baylor safety Al Walcott), and Arkansas signed a Top 25 recruiting class.
But to date, the gains do not negate the program’s losses.
The departures don’t end there, either. The turnover in the coaching staff has been just as significant.
Pittman fired the Hogs’ strength and conditioning coordinator and lost three assistants (Barry Odom, now the head coach at UNLV, linebackers coach Michael Scherer to the DC gig at UNLV and tight ends coach Dowell Loggains, now the OC at South Carolina) to promotions. Then just last week, offensive coordinator Kendall Briles made a strange lateral move to TCU.
Pittman quickly brought Dan Enos (formally at Maryland) back to Fayetteville as the team’s OC.
Add it all up — from players to coaches — and that’s a lot of churn for a program that’s touted its continuity and cultural buy-in since Pittman took the job.
Perhaps the staff shakeup and a remade roster help Pittman improve team chemistry and rid the program of whatever internal strifes they had in 2022 when they went 7-6 with four losses by a combined nine points.
Perhaps. But as we sit here in late January, I don’t see Sam Pittman’s program headed in some sort of positive direction for the 2023 season.
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State
Based on impact departures, the Cowboys have been in a race with the Razorbacks for the most grisly start to the offseason, as there’s been a mass exodus out of Stillwater, too.
Gundy saw first-year defensive coordinator Derek Mason opt to take a sabbatical from coaching rather than staying on staff, and the Pokes’ roster was raided by a slew of entrees into the transfer portal.
Four-year starting quarterback Spencer Sanders bounced for Ole Miss, and starting tailback Dominic Richardson transferred to Baylor. Oklahoma State’s offense also lost three of its top five receiving threats. Defensively, the Pokes saw their most impactful linebacker Mason Cobb (team-leading 13 tackles for loss) leave for USC. In all, nine starters and 16 players off the 2022 team are gone, and unlike Arkansas, it’s not as if the Cowboys replaced many of those guys with an impressive haul of commits or top-tier transfers of their own.
Gundy inked the nation’s 55th class in 2023 — good for 11th in the Big 12, and only one of the 12 incoming transfers is ranked as a blue-chip prospect. He hasn’t filled the DC opening yet, either.
It was just a season ago that the Cowboys were in the Big 12 Championship facing a fourth-and-goal from inside the 5-yard line with a chance to sneak into the College Football Playoff. They opened the 2022 season 6-1 with wins over Baylor and Texas, only to lose five of six to end the season as their offense fell off a cliff.
Gundy is entering Year 19 at his alma mater, and it bears repeating, he’s in little danger of getting fired. But Oklahoma State was recently seen as one of the steadiest programs in the Big 12, and that’s certainly not the case today.
Can Gundy find a way to restore that stability in Stillwater before the 2023 season?
Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M
Just over one year ago, Jimbo Fisher signed the greatest recruiting class in modern history. Like 17 Top 100 signees, including nine prospects ranked as 5-stars.
Considering all the events since, Texas A&M’s 2022 NSD haul might as well be dubbed the Curse of the Black Pearl Oil for Fisher’s Aggies.
To whit: Fisher got in a public kerfuffle with Nick Saban over NIL and recruiting. Fisher saw his team start the season inside the Top 10 and then not even make a bowl game. The Aggies finished with the same conference record — 2-6 — as Vanderbilt. Their offense was atrocious and several of their marquee freshmen signees were suspended for multiple games.
It was ugly.
To kickstart the offseason, Fisher, the team’s play-caller, fired (in-name-only) offensive coordinator Daryl Dickey, but then struggled to find a replacement. Several young OCs, reportedly including Garrett Riley who landed at Clemson, turned down Fisher’s advances, leading Texas A&M’s head coach to circle back to Bobby Petrino.
We’ll see how that works out.
In the meantime, Texas A&M’s roster has undergone a cleanse, with more than 26 players entering the transfer portal. Of that group, 2022 signees like Anthony Lucas (USC), Smoke Bouie (Georgia), Denver Harris (LSU) and Chris Marshall (Ole Miss) have left the program and 17 total blue-chip recruits from 2022 and 2021 classes combined have left College Station.
Some of the departures were necessary, but the totality of talent out the door has changed the outlook of A&M’s roster — both from a numbers standpoint and overall ceiling.
The Aggies inked 19 prospects in the 2023 early signing period, and have only added three transfers (headlined by former UNC 5-star corner Tony Grimes) thus far.
Still, Texas A&M has plenty of stars littered throughout their roster, and maybe Conner Weigman and Evan Stewart have a big sophomore surge and ignite a static offense.
But that’s merely hope and guesswork at this point in the offseason calendar.
HONORABLE MENTION
One final head coach worth monitoring whose program has had an early whiff of offseason stink is Mack Brown’s North Carolina Tar Heels.
UNC finished the 2022 season 9-5 — with four consecutive losses to end the year. Essentially their entire starting secondary hit the transfer portal and landed elsewhere, OC Phil Longo left for the same job at Wisconsin and cornerbacks coach Dre Bly was fired. Also concerning: UNC’s recruiting has suddenly regressed after a couple of initial strong classes under Mack Brown.
North Carolina had the nation’s No. 27 class after the early signing period — a 17-spot drop in the rankings after a Top 10 group the previous cycle.
Drake Maye is back, but otherwise, there are some concerning trends happening in Chapel Hill right now.