Petrino lays out vision for Arkansas Razorbacks going forward

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — It ended where it began for Sam Pittman. At his table. Wife by his side. Arkansas Athletics director Hunter Yurachek sitting across from a humble man.

However, this time it wasn't where Yurachek wanted to be. Unfortunately, his coach had lost the team in his eye and after sleeping on it, he was at ease with the decision to let Pittman go.

"So the culmination of what happened on Saturday and then a couple more one score losses, one at Memphis and one at Ole Miss, just felt like it was time to make a change in the leadership of our football program," Yurachek said. "I met with Chancellor Robinson and President Selveria after the game on Saturday. Woke up Sunday morning with a great sense of peace that this was the right decision at the right time head into a bye week.

"... As you can imagine, Sam was incredibly gracious, incredibly thankful for the opportunity that he had had to be the head coach at the University of Arkansas, and made a really tough day as well as it could for me as a Director of Athletics

After the house call, his next move was to call on offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino who met Yurachek at the athletics director's house. It didn't take long to get a yes out of his offensive coordinator.

Petrino's immediate line of address to everyone is the need for people to get used to change in life and a big part of that came because of massive adjustments in the defensive staff.

Before breakfast Monday morning Petrino had axed defensive coordinator Travis Williams, defensive line coach Deke Adams and secondary coach Marcus Woodson. At his 2:30 meeting with the team later today, he and Yurachek will continue to push the message of learning how to handle change.

"The No. 1 thing is that you have to get used to to change," Petrino said. "You know, your whole life there's going to be change. So how we handle that, our attitude on how we handle that, our positiveness on how we handle that, will determine how quickly we improve. We're going to improve this. That'll determine how quickly we improve."

Petrino also wants to address the need for everyone to take responsibility for what has happened so far.

"I think in football, you have to have to always talk about courage and being courageous, and I think that's part of what we have to do now as as a team, is understand that we all have to take the arrow in the forehead," Petrino said. "You know, we didn't win Saturday. We didn't perform like we needed to offensively. We didn't do it defensively and come up with any big plays on special teams. So it's all of us."

It's also important for Peteino that the team learn how to clbecome one Razorback. He expressed concern that there had been too much of a divide between the offense and the defense.

"We just got to get together and become one," Petrino said. "You know that's, I think, one of the issues we've had is the separation and offense defense. We need to be able to come together as one unit."

While many decisions were made Monday morning regarding staff, including running backs coach Kolby Smith being named offensive coordinator and Chris Wilson named defensive coordinator, Petrino confirmed he thinks he will be able to bring at least one coach onto his staff from the outside.

No matter who ends up in the coaching offices in the end, Petrino faces the daunting task of trying to get the players to rally around the staff rather than hold grudges about those who were dismissed. He is aware this is a tall hill to climb.

"It's obviously mixed reactions," Petrino said of what he expects when he meets with the team as head coach for the first time. "We got some people that you know are excited and energized, and we've got some people that you know are hurt a little bit right now. Their feelings are down, and that's natural, that's that's how it goes. And, you know, I don't want to minimize their feelings and how they are, but at some point we've got to step together and move forward. And the quicker we do that, the better that we're going to be."

One thing is clear. Regardless of how the initial meeting goes, Petrino has a plan for how things need to go on the first day back at practice and what needs to change before the Hogs lock up with Tennessee on the road in a couple of weeks.

"The best case scenario as we come out tomorrow, and we work hard and we practice hard and we get well prepared in how we're going to change the defensive structure and how we're going to go about running to the football and tackling," Petrino said. "We got to go back to some individual drills, tackle circuits, pursuit circuits and turnover circuits, and do things that the little things that make the difference in the game.

"I'm excited about the way our staff has been handling it, and the plan that we have going forward defensively, offensively. We've got to get back where we get the ball across the 50 yard line. We go score touchdowns like we were early in the season, and that hurt us the last three halves that we weren't able to convert touchdowns when we crossed the 50 yard line. So we're going to continue to work hard on that. And then we've got to come up with a way where we can make difference making plays in special teams. Right now, in special teams, we haven't had big return, block punt, you know, forced fumble, that turns into points. So to score a lot of points, you have to score in all three areas.

However, in the most un-Petrino like manner based on what everyone knows from his days as head coach previously at Arkansas, the new coach had a suggestion perhaps no one saw coming, especially after the serious tone of everything going down with the staff decisions in the morning.

"There's a lot of fun work ahead of us, and we're going to attack it with a positive attitude," Petrino said. "Make it fun. We've got to make our players enjoy being in the building. We've got to make them enjoy going out on the practice field.

"... We've got a team sitting there, players that that need to be uplifted, and it's our job as a staff to go in there and show them how we can be successful and have fun with it, but also get out on the field and compete like Razorbacks."

As for Yurachek, his expectations are prehaps a little more realistic in comparison to the pie in the sky images fans have had in their heads imagine the day Petrino might one day return as head coach of the Hogs.

"It's not about necessarily wins and losses at this point," Yurachek said. "It's not fair to evaluate him on that moving forward. Does that make sense? I told him I don't expect him to come in with some magic pixie dust, and we're going to go 7-0 the rest of the way with the schedule that we have.

"I want to see a team that is much more competitive than we were, especially on Saturday. Want to see that team that, I mean Ole Miss, is ranked fourth in the country this week. We're three weeks removed from having the ball in the 25 yard line with two minutes to go. They most likely were not going to stop us if we don't fumble that ball. Our season could look totally different if we push that ball in at that game. And so we've got a good team in that locker room. We got to find that good team again and get them back out on the field."

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