Pittman's experience with transfer portal showing for Hogs

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When the transfer portal first came along, it was a jarring shock for both Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks' fan base.

Wide receiver Mike Washington went through spring practices with the expectation he would either be the Hogs' leading or No. 2 receiver the upcoming fall playing opposite future NFL first round draft pick Treylon Burks as quarterback KJ Jefferson's deep threat. When he jumped into the transfer portal, something Arkansas fans weren't acquainted with, and bolted for Lincoln Riley's Oklahoma Sooners, it left an unfillable hole in a roster that was trying to follow up on the high of a nine-win season.

It was quite the blow to the program and set the stage for a huge learning curve, especially once NIL was added to the equation, for a first-time head coach who was just trying to get his feet under him against the rugged SEC.

Fast forward several years and Pittman is now a veteran in dealing with the portal who has learned from years of mistakes made along the way. In place of a wide-eyed new coach who got blindsided by the concept when it first came about is a grizzled veteran who has a clear plan in place that provides much greater stability than years past.

"It's very diffucult," Pittman said. "The hours are strong right now. That's why they pay you and why they call you the head coach. I'd be lying if I said I was excited about the portal opening [Wednesday]."

What he has now is almost an NFL approach to roster building. Much like how NFL teams begin preseason with more players than they can keep on the final roster, Pittman took advantage of a loophole that allows him to have more players pledged to the Razorbacks than the Hogs can have once games start in August.

Part of this is because players who haven't reported yet, such as Warren's Antonio Jordan, technically don't count toward how many players are on the spring roster. It means players have to be cut, so to speak, to make room for incoming players, but not before Pittman and his staff can watch and evaluate more players than normal to see who can contribute.

He also has an NFL style draft board. There are those within the program responsible for knowing which players from other teams who are likely to enter the portal.

A lot of those names are narrowed down based on size, skill and team need and reported to Pittman for evaluation. When the portal opened this morning, that role became even more dedicated.

"We have somebody in there [watching] when they go [into the portal] or we're hearing, or you see on, whatever it be, X or Instagram, or you hear from a coach, or more importantly, probably an agent, so we look at them," Pittman said. "Like {Tuesday] I looked at eight to see where we're ranking them. Ranking them in terms of needs and affordability. [A] ranking scale based on where you are at financially. How far does the cost stretch? We do that all the time."

As a result, he continuously consults with assistant coaches and new general manager Remy Cofield on reranking players and making decisions. Meanwhile, he's also learned to be in constant communication with people in the program to keep a better monitor on who might have a bug in their ear trying to get them to unexpectedly leave.

"You really don't know what goes on behind the scenes," Pittman said. "They can't go to another SEC school ... I don't know what's going on behind closed doors, but we talk about it as a staff all the time.

"There's a couple of guys [considering transferring], but the ones we're hearing about aren't high on the depth chart — disgruntled maybe because of where they are on the depth chart."

It's a disruptive process, but after years of dealing with it, Pittman has learned to remain calm and roll with the punches. That doesn't make it any less frustrating though, especially if something slips through and his staff gets blindsided.

"There's a lot going on," Pittman said. "Do I wish that we would have one portal? Yes, I do. I think it's very difficult after you've gone through a spring, cause that's why you have spring ball. What's your team gonna look like after spring ball? Then the portal opens for 10 days after that ... I just think it's very, very difficult because not only do we, the state, need to know who's on our football team and what kind of football we have, the players themselves need to know who's on the team and who's gonna stay with the team."

The other adjustment he has learned to make is how to handle his staff once the portal opens. At the conclusion of spring practices, which takes place Saturday after the Red-White game, prime recruiting season kicks in.

However, he won't be sending his assistants out on the road for a while this year. Pittman prefers to keep his staff glued to campus during the portal and have them squeeze in what recruiting they can in the four weeks after the portal closes.

"To me it was really important that we stay and close up with our team and visit with our team and get through the portal," Pittman said. "The other thing is you're having guys come in and you're sending somebody out and you don't know who's in the portal and this position comes back and then you've got to fly him back, very costly as well."

Still, there's a light at the end of the tunnel that seems destined to return Pittman to the role for which he signed up that night in his former Georgia home with athletics director Hunter Yurachek. The general manager now handles a lot of financial discussions that created tension between Pittman and his players.

There's also a big push to cut the transfer portal down to one January window after coaches voted unanimously to send the proposal to the NCAA for consideration recently. If passed, he can go into spring knowing who is for sure on his team.

The last, and perhaps most important, is the expectation that the revenue sharing agreement, along with new rules monitoring NIL that will actually require players to perform services for actual value rather than simply being paid huge sums of money to join a team, will even the playing field for Pittman. It will also keep him from having to traveling around to do a lot of begging.

"It should get us even again," Pittman said. "We've got the same amount of money as somebody else. We have a player who is worth X amount of dollars. We didn't say this is how much you're worth. We did in the revenue sharing, but outside of that, we didn't say that, a committee said that. The numbers of millions of dollars and all that where you can earn outside of revenue sharing, it's gonna be difficult. Now, if you're worth it, the committee will say you're worth it, but I do think there's gonna be much more parity. There's [still] gonna be schools that try to find a way around it."

With his role presumably getting back more into just coaching over the coming year and sales pitches to players returning more to a model of relationships and facilities, Pittman says the odds of being able to use his experience to return Arkansas to prominent football glory are going to take a solid bounce in a positive direction.

I think everybody would agreee it got out of hand there for a couple of years," Pittman said. "The parity financially certainly was not there. What is fair, and what do they have and what do I have? If that's the case [that things will now be more financially equal], I've said it before, we were able to go from 4-20 to Top 20 before all of this came in, and I think we can return to that."

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