Not much Pittman could do as freak play sinks Hogs second consecutive week

Undisputible bad call ultimately comes back to haunt Arkansas Razorbacks, put careers in jeopardy

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman looks on against the Memphis Tigers during the second half at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. | Wesley Hale-Imagn Images

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — What in the world is Arkansas coach Sam Pittman supposed to do?

Last week, Arkansas was driving to win its SEC opener against No. 13 Ole Miss when Jalen Brown had the ball ripped away while fighting for extra yards deep in Rebels territory.

Then, Saturday, against Memphis, a blatant missed offensive pass interference call where Cortez Branham, Jr. stiff-armed Hogs defensive back Julian Neal, sending him crashing to the ground, allowed a touchdown that immediately had Hogs fans wondering how this one was going to come back to haunt them.

DEEP BALL ON THE MONEY FOR MEMPHIS 🎯 pic.twitter.com/28ThqBWk1t

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) September 20, 2025

To add insult to injury, the referees called defensive pass interference just to let people know they were aware something happened.

While it took until the final minute for Arkansas fans to get their answer, the play did come back to cost the Razorbacks the game, 32-31, and possibly the job of at least one staff member, perhaps more.

That's because the Tigers went 94 yards on four plays, capped by a 64-yard run by Sutton Smith to take the lead with just under five minutes remaining. However, at the moment it didn't seem to be too much of a worry.

SUTTON SMITH @sutton5_ #ALLIN | @ESPNCFB

📺 | https://t.co/6320mLMr9u pic.twitter.com/cImqDrxSBw

— Memphis Football (@MemphisFB) September 20, 2025

When Pittman had managed to get offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino to commit to the running game, the Hogs easily moved the ball throughout the game. That remained the case as Arkansas began driving for what was either going to be a rushing touchdown in the final seconds for the win or a chip shot field goal to put it away.

After the Hogs marched 68 yards on nine plays, chewing 3:33 off the clock, running back Mike Washington darted two yards to the Memphis seven-yard line, giving Arkansas what appeared to be a first and goal with 1:18 left to run down. However, the Tigers came running out of a scrum claiming they had recovered a fumble.

The ruling on the field was Washington was down, but for the second week in a row, the replay showed the Razorbacks were a couple of inches from getting down and heading to victory. Instead, the ball was punched out at the last micro-second while Washington's elbow hung in the air and his knee rested on a defender.

Pittman can't get a referee to not miss a call that was made not only by the announcers as it happened, but the rules expert immediately after. He can't push his players down to the ground in the split second before they fumble trying to make a big effort play.

However, he's going to take the brunt of another inexplicable Arkansas loss where he was coaching his team to certain victory. Could he have put his foot down and demanded Petrino ram the ball down the Tigers' throats, wearing out the much smaller defense earlier then ended up being the case?

Sure, but he's always let Petrino do his thing and call the plays as he sees fit. Could he have asked defensive coordinator Travis Williams to stop dropping eight so the Razorbacks defense would stop getting burned by big runs, which ultimately did them in?

Sure, but that was only part of the issue. His players were getting run over and drug all over the field and often missed tackles because they didn't execute basic form tackles as part of the fundamentals of the game.

The Razorbacks were bigger and stronger, yet looked afraid to hit. Pittman can't do that for them.

Still, while he is going to lose his mind behind closed doors about the blown call costing his team the win, PIttman is a "buck stops here" kind of coach. He will face whatever the consequences of losing this game happens to be.

Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek admitted meeting with Pittman about the team's defense last week, which isn't a good sign for Williams' job security heading into the Notre Dame game. Of course, there will be tremendous pressure in some circles to take Pittman down for claiming defeat from the jaws of victory.

That would be a complicated proposition as it took a lot of creative viewing of legal loopholes to be able to hire Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator in the first place. Basically, the understanding is that it boiled down to him being able to return in an assistant role so long as he wasn't taking the head coaching job.

If that's the case, it would presumably rule him out from consideration as interim head coach. That leaves Williams, which isn't exactly the option Arkansas fans will be pushing for after the defensive performance the past few weeks.

If anything, the most likely path, barring an unexpected turn of the season where freak plays actually break the Hogs way, is the university puts together a retirement package for Pittman that gets announced in October and a coaching search ensues.

There's still a lot of football to be played. If the ball can bounce against the Hogs in ways only seen in movie scripts and referee calls can go so boldly wrong against Arkansas, costing them a game, then it can theoretically go the other way, changing the course of what appears to be an unavoidable path of history at the moment.

One thing is for certain. It's going to be an interest build up to next Saturday's game against Notre Dame.