Pittman still has 'a lot' of confidence in freshman kicker
Defensive miscues took a front seat to a large portion of the blame in Arkansas’ SEC opening 41-35 loss to Ole Miss last weekend. In the big picture, rightfully so.
The Razorback offense, powered by an individual historic effort from quarterback Taylen Green, racked up over 500 yards, but also only scored seven points in the second half and had a crucial late fumble while driving down the field looking to take the lead.
Additionally, special teams shouldered some of the blame as true freshman kicker Scott Starzyk missed both of his attempts earlier in the contest from 51 and 49 yards, respectively.
Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman said during his weekly press conference on Monday that he knows Starzyk will bounce back.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence (in him), obviously,” Pittman said. “He certainly had made one this year already that way, but I have full confidence in him, and he’ll be fine. He’s young, he’ll be fine.”
Pittman elaborates on why Arkansas went for field goals in certain situations
Considering Arkansas and Ole Miss are top five SEC offenses, Pittman elected to take the ball to start the game with hopes of scoring first. The Hogs marched to the Ole Miss 33 in five plays, but the drive was halted when Green’s short third down pass over the middle to O’Mega Blake was two yards shy of the first down marker.
Starzyk kicked a 53-yard field goal in the season-opening victory over Alabama A&M, so it was a no-brainer to send him out with confidence it would result in an three-point advantage despite a hostile road environment.
“We took the ball to take the lead,” Pittman said. “That’s what we were trying to do. We got down there. You know, hindsight, would we have kicked it or not, because if I knew how it was going the entire game, we would have went for it, I don’t know.
“Our whole deal was, we’re going to take the ball, take the lead and let them chase us. Which we ended up chasing them the whole game.”
From there, the possible shootout came to fruition as the teams traded touchdowns for four consecutive possessions resulting in a 28-28 tie with 1:18 remaining in the first half. Starzyk was a perfect 4 for 4 on extra points following each Arkansas touchdown. After The Rebels quickly drove nine plays to take a three-point lead into halftime, each defense came out strong and made a stand to start the third quarter.
Ole Miss put another touchdown on the board later in the frame to increase their lead to 10 points. Again, understandably showing the confidence his young kicker had previously earned, Pittman sent Starzyk out for the 49-yard attempt that was unsuccessful. Pittman considered digging into his bag of tricks, but ultimately went for the points.
“Probably more than the first question I have on fourth and two was, was I going to fake the second one?,” Pittman said. “We had a fake in that we thought would work and the problem there was it was a 10-point game. And I thought, ‘well, if we can make the field goal, we can get it to a one score game, but we’re really risking to get it to a three-point game instead of seven.
“The second one, I mean, he hit really good, he probably overanalyzed missing, and he barely missed the second one.”
