Pittman robbed of chance to show what he could have been

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Under normal circumstances, this year would theoretically be the peak of the Sam Pittman era.

In 2021, a year after becoming the most beloved coach in the SEC, Pittman led the Razorbacks to an improbable nine wins. He had taken Arkansas from the dumpster fire to a Capital One Bowl win over Penn State and all the momentum was on the Hogs' side.

Recent history had shown at Arkansas, that sort of success early on in a coach's tenure means quality success just a few years down the road. In 1998, Houston Nutt made a similar big splash when his team started 8-0 and was a Clint Stoerner stumble/fumble away from a win over eventual national champion Tennessee and potentially competing for the national title.

However, Nutt took that season and swung it into a boatload of talent in the 1999 and 2000 recruiting classes, the two groups from which he could recruit off that season. What came of it was 10 NFL players and a long list of Arkansas legends.

Matt Jones, Shawn Andrews, Jason Peters, Cedric Cobbs, Tony Bua, Ahmad "Batman" Carroll, Lawrence Richardson, Caleb Miller, George Wilson, Decori Birmingham and Mark Pierce cover only part of a long list of quality talent.

That's quite the load pulled in off that one season, so, theoretically, Pittman should have a similarly loaded haul waiting to lead the Razorbacks this season. However, he had to face a much different environment.

Any momentum he could have seized was essentially killed by the arrival of NIL, the portal and the early signing period. By the time No. 8 Arkansas rolled into Athens to face No. 1 Georgia in early October, the 2022 recruiting classes were essentially locked down.

In two months' time they would be signed, sealed and delivered before Arkansas could get a bounce off a big win over Penn State and bask in the glory of a nine-win season. Pittman couldn't even recruit off the photo of him on the throne with all of his team's trophies surrounding him.

All of that would be reserved for the 2023 class. Unfortunately, because Pittman and the Razorbacks administration wanted to play it safe and also do the best they could to follow the rules, the Hogs' program got left woefully behind in the recruiting game by the emergence of NIL and various collectives around the country.

Teams like Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Tennessee took one look at the lack of rules and structure around NIL and decided to attack with a wild abandon that would have made the old Southwest Conference proud. The Volunteers even got their state legislature to pass laws that essentially said they were the legal rule setters of college football in the state and not the NCAA, so if it benefitted the resurgence of Vols football, it was a go.

Meanwhile, Arkansas' safe, cautious approach killed Pittman's recruiting momentum and robbed him of the fruits of his labor. While that 2022 class had some solid names on it, offensive lineman E'Marion Harris is the only one of note still on the team.

The 2023 class has several key names also, but the only players expected to dent the stat sheets this season include Quincy Rhodes, Ian Geffrard and Jaheim Singletary. That's a long way from Matt Jones, Cedric Cobbs, Jason Peters and Shawn Andrews, much less the rest of Nutt's list.

Nutt had the opportunity to build his future by setting up a team that four years later would win nine more games, including a trip down to Austin that featured a 38-28 win over No. 6 Texas. His wins that season set the table for a future that included Peyton Hillis, Felix Jones and Darren McFadden and more memorable seasons.

There should have been a cycle of success for Pittman similar to Nutt's that built off these bursts of recruiting success every three or four years. Unfortunately, changes in the game robbed Pittman of that opportunity,

This should have been his year to make a push for the NCAA playoff or at least provide hope it was possible. Instead, he's been left scrambling again to piece together a team through the portal that he can only hope will keep his head above water long enough to reach the 2027 recruiting class.

That group, in theory, will be as close as college football will ever be again to the environment Nutt was able to capitalize upon and under which Pittman thought he was going to get to build his future when he signed at Arkansas.

If he can't get there, no one will ever know how good Pittman could have been as a coach. Instead, he will forever be known as the coach who did all he could to keep the program from falling back to the late Bret Bielema / Chad Morris era while the overall athletics program struggled to stay two steps behind the rest of the college football world in figuring out NIL and the transfer portal.

It's not fair, but it is the hand he was dealt. Nothing can change that now.

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