Pittman Not Sweating The Arkansas Heat
ATLANTA — It would not be an overstatement to say that Arkansas coach Sam Pittman has one of the hottest seats amongst SEC coaches. After a 7-6 season and a second consecutive offseason where the team was gutted by transfer portal defections, leading to the addition of 50 new players, Pittman knows the score.
“Now, how can we stop (discussing his job status)? We win more games. That’s what we can do,” he said at SEC Media Days July 17. “Look, most everything a guy brings on him, he brings on himself. Most things that come out, you earn it. Now, you may disagree with some of it, all that. But I’ve earned it, I have. To get off that, we’ve got to win more games.”
Pittman noted some of the positives from last year: a bowl berth for the fourth consecutive season, a win in the bowl game and an upset of Tennessee, at that point a top-five team.
“I’m not worried about it ’cause I got a good staff and a good team. So I’m not worried about it at all,” Pittman said in his distinctive Arkansas twang.
Other people might be worried on Pittman’s behalf, as Arkansas’ schedule is far from easy. It will host Notre Dame and Auburn, but has road trips to Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU and Texas. It will also face a team that has beaten them 11 of the last 12 times they’ve met: Texas A&M.
“The thing I want to talk about Texas A&M is that the last time we played ’em at home, Johnny Manziel was running wild on us out there. I remember because he came over to the sideline laughing at us,” Pittman said of the 2013 game where the Aggies outscored the Razorbacks 45-33. “Probably could, they were ahead. That was in 2013, if I remember right … since then we went down to Dallas and we didn’t have a lot of luck down in Dallas. It’s going to be a good home and home with Texas A&M. I think it’s going to be great for the fans as well.”
Arkansas fans probably are less concerned about where the A&M game will be played as opposed to what the Razorbacks will look like when the Aggies arrive in Fayetteville. The projected depth chart has seven new transfers starting, but two critical ones return — quarterback Tylan Green and running back Braylen Russell. Green threw for 3,154 yards, 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions last season, while Russell ran for 354 yards and three touchdowns on just 67 carries (5.3 YPC). It will be their second year in Bobby Petrino’s offense, and Pittman is expecting a major step forward.
“As you go back, look statistically, when (Petrino)’s in his second year somewhere, they go through the roof,” Pittman said. “We finished in the top 10 in offense last year. I think we have a better offensive football team than we had a year ago.”
Who Green will throw to has yet to be determined.
“At wide receiver I think we’ve got about eight, maybe nine, that can play in this league. Who they are, who will run out there with the first group and all that, we’re going to run somebody out there Aug. 1 with the first group. Is that going to be the first group (for the opener)? I don’t know,” Pittman said.
Defensively, the Razorbacks look to improve on a 2024 performance where they were 73rd in total defense and 110th nationally against the pass — dead last in the SEC. Pittman said he expects an improved performance from the defense in 2025, top to bottom.
“Interior-wise, obviously we brought Cam Bell (to media days), so we think he’s one of the top D-linemen in the SEC. Ian Geffrard would be another guy we believe in heavily,” Pittman said. “(David) Oke is another guy that we believe in. He came in and was hurt a little bit in the spring but has a lot of talent. Then the other one that probably is the most improved is Danny Saili … He’s going to be a force. I really like him.”
Pittman was also positive about his linebacker and defensive end groups, but admitted they’re lacking in terms of overall experience.
“I like (Stephen Dix) and I like (Xavian) Sorey a lot (at linebacker),” he said. “I think between the linebacker group and inexperience at defensive end is where we’re at right now. We got guys we like, Justus Boone, Quincy Rhodes, we got Phillip Lee coming in. We like Charlie Collins. We like those guys. They’re inexperienced.”
The biggest issue for Arkansas in 2024 was the secondary, and Pittman said the cornerback room remains a source of uncertainty.
“We’re big at corner. We can run at corner. I don’t know exactly who we can run at corner. I think we have five of them in there for a battle. All of them except (Keshawn) Davila, they’re extremely fast, are big. You are not out there going, ‘Okay, we can’t get into cover two where they’ve got to tackle. We can’t get into cover one because we can’t cover,’ you know?”
While a lot of prognosticators are down on Arkansas this season, Pittman remains optimistic that the Razorbacks are heading back to the upper echelon of the SEC.
“We’ve got a good football team. We’ve got a good staff. We’ve got great facilities. We got a great state of fans at the University of Arkansas, the state of Arkansas. There’s no reason we can’t do it,” he said.
Arkansas 2025 schedule
Aug. 30: Alabama A&M
Sept. 6: Arkansas State
Sept. 13: @Ole Miss
Sept. 20: @Memphis
Sept. 27: Notre Dame
Oct. 11: @Tennessee
Oct. 18: TEXAS A&M
Oct. 25: Auburn
Nov. 1: Mississippi State
Nov. 15: @LSU
Nov. 22: @Texas
Nov. 29: Missouri
Projected lineup
QB: #10, Taylen Green (RS-Sr.-TR.)
RB: #0, Braylen Russell (So.)
TE: #88, Rohan Jones (Sr.-TR.)
WR (X): #9, O’Mega Blake (Sr.-TR.)
WR (Z): #16, Ismael Cisse (So.-TR.)
WR (W): #6, Raylen Sharpe (RS-Sr.-TR.)
LT: #51, Corey Robinson II (RS-Sr.-TR.)
LG: #55, Fernando Carmona (RS-Sr.-TR.)
C: #52, Caden Kitler (RS-Jr.-TR.)
RG: #76, E’Marion Harris (RS-Jr.)
RT: #71, Shaq McRoy (RS-Fr.-TR.)
DE: #9, Charlie Collins (So.)
LDT: #88, Danny Salli (Sr-TR.)
RDT: #5, Cameron Ball (RS-Sr.)
DE: #97, Quincy Rhodes Jr. (Jr.)
MACK: #14, Stephen Dix Jr. (Sr-TR.)
MONEY: #10, Xavian Sorey Jr. (RS-Sr.-TR.)
NICKEL: #23, Julian Neal (RS-Sr.-TR.)
CB: #2, Selman Bridges (So.)
SS: #3, Larry Worth III (Sr.-TR.)
FS: #16, Miguel Mitchell (RS-Jr.-TR.)
CB: #13, Kani Walker (RS-Sr.-TR.)
