Hogs Fans Will Face Fewer Headaches from Low Level Coaching Mistakes in Games

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - If there is one thing that drove fans nuts about Sam Pittman is how often one-score games not only came down to turnovers, but also coaching errors such as clock management by way of not only making decisions quickly, but carrying them out efficiently.

Early on it was burning through timeouts because of failure to get calls to the quarterback in a timely manner, something that hurt the Hogs in 2024 when LSU had the ball near the Arkansas end zone with a minute left. Pittman had to burn timeouts to avoid penalties earlier in the half, so instead of being able to stop the clock when his players made a stop at the one with around 59 seconds left, he had to sweat it out as the clock ran down.

The Tigers ultimately kicked a field goal with five seconds left instead of Arkansas mounting a potential game-winning or tying drive with plenty of time to work with after moving the ball rather easily all day and Cam Little still on the sidelines as a kicking option that rarely missed.

A year later, while playing a road game in Memphis, Arkansas gave up a touchdown with 30 seconds left in the half, something that happened against LSU the year prior that ultimately determined the game. It shouldn't have counted because of an obvious offensive pass interference call, but what else shouldn't have happened was Memphis getting the ball back again with the chance to cut what was an 18-point lead half a minute ago to four.

Yet, Pittman allowed Bobby Petrino to call three straight pass plays while also not huddling from the Hogs' 25-yard line, leaving time on the clock after Arkansas was forced to punt. Fortunately, Memphis didn't return the punt and didn't hit a big play right before the half the way the Hogs did against LSU several years ago, but fans had seen clock mismanagement happen so often and were so burned up over the pass interference not being called when Julian Neal was knocked to the ground, that they were furious the Tigers got the ball back against a sixth-year coach.

In the beginning, this sort of stuff was was to be expected. Pittman came in with no experience as an offensive coordinator or higher, which means his career was spent out of the loop that included special teams or most major decisions in general. He had yet to learn what his philosophy would be on when to go for it.

Fans got to watch in real time as his process evolved, sometimes for the good, but often to the detriment of the team. It was understood and tolerated the first few years, but toward the end, the learning on the job line faded in validity.

Now the Hogs are six meetings into spring practice that included their first scrimmage and fans will be excited to hear they not only have a coach who can lean heavily on experience in Ryan Silverfield, but part pf that experience is knowing practice is for him and his coaches as well.

If the ball goes out of bounds during a timed scenario with a few seconds left, he wants his staff executing as if the game is live on a Saturday in that scenario. What is the flow of information in that situation and what decision will ultimately be made in a timely manner?

How are they getting players on the field, lined up correctly ready to execute with as little stress created by time wasted by the coaching staff as possible?

"And then the other situation we did was a two-minute situation," Silverfield said. "I believe it was 1:31 [left], one time out, and offense was down two.

"Earlier in the week, we had done another two-minute situation where the offense was down five. And so we don't necessarily have the hurry up field goal, but just putting that in there and on one of those situations — actually pretty unique, a great thing to teach off of — big, explosive play, get tackled literally at the one-yard line, 12 seconds left, right? The question is, with the first down, do you burn the time out there, right? This is great communication for us to talk about, as a coaching staff, for me, for our players.

"Do you hurry up and run a tempo run? Do you run a pass? Snap that ball with 11 seconds, and then you have that time out if you need to run the ball. Do you kick? Then do you let the clock run and then kick it from that weird angle, balls on the six inch line, tight. Down two do you go for the [win] or for [the tie] down three, depending to tie all those things. I think that's all interesting as you go for it, but some great teachable, situational things."

The coaches also wanted to challenge both themselves and the quarterbacks when things get hectic down the stretch, so, even though they were practicing indoors, they kept the situations as close to actual game play as possible, which put Silverfield and offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey to. the test.

"It's great teaching moment for the quarterback . . . getting lined up, and then also great communication between me and Crams," Silverfield said. "Hey, let's go with this play call and get it out quickly right. Make sure we're all on the same page with the special teams coordinator, all those things.

"So the clock style started winding. All right, so what do we do? We burned the time out and just ran one more play. Wow. So ideally, you get the clock, you know, you go out of bounds, or, if they — excuse me, he got tackled inbounds. All right, you got the first down. Clock's gonna start when the ball is spotted and the [umpire] gets out of the way. Well, during this situation, man, ball got down, and it's just getting teaching everybody, 'Hey, you got to go, because as soon as that ball gets spotted and he blows, it clocks rolling.'

"So we have to have a play call ready. And you know, you don't want to burn the time out. Now, if you say you're going to kick a field goal to win it at the end, then probably, depending on where it is, maybe you do a pass play, right? We've got some things in our scheme that we say, okay, how do we burn some of the clock? And if it's there, it's there. If not throw it away, or do I let the clock run all the way dow'n to three seconds and bang the time out? So just want to continue. I think it's so much teaching."

The other thing being shown through head coaching experience is how to limit injuries during practice. Instead of putting players at risk when the ball hits the ground, Silverfield directs the referees to automatically rule it a turnover the second it touches grass.

As a result, players aren't pulling muscles and breaking bones trying to dive on the ball in a scrum. Meanwhile, the player who fumbled has to go do up-downs for a while to help him remember the value of holding onto the football.

It's just one more way of managing the team, even in spring, to make sure things run smoothly in September. In addition to plans on how to help his team avoid clock management issues and turnovers, Silverfield also comes already equipped with a philosophy on how he views the world of analytics as it pertains to how his team will handle things during the game.

"I think you look at it for it can certainly help you in certain situations. I think there's also when those analytic books are written, if they're written on a Wednesday, they try to have an understanding what that weather may look like at 6 p.m. on a Saturday.

"But there's also the ebbs and flows of football game, right? What's the crowd noise look like? Hey, did the to the right guards girlfriend break up with them the night before? Like, you can't measure that in analytics book. So you got to know, okay, hey, maybe we got to figure this out.

"Maybe we got punt here because they're starting part returners out with an injury, and maybe we have the opportunity to get the ball if the new guy drops or doesn't make the right call. And so I think there's a lot that goes into it. You still got to go with some gut feeling, but if you can use analytics to help you make an educated decision, we will."

So, while there are plenty of reasons for Arkansas fans to remain skeptical about Silverfield and his staff, the one thing they can't say is he isn't trying to prepare to do away with the things that drove Hogs fans crazy each season for the past six years.

His coaches are practicing clock management. His players are working on understanding the value of holding onto the football.

He's aware of when to use analytics and when to follow his gut. There's experience there that simply wasn't there before.

Sure, it's not week in and week out SEC experience, but it's a big step ahead of where Pittman was. That's not a slight on him.

The former Hogs coach did what he could with the hand he was dealt and used as much of his experience as he had available. There's just more of it available with Silverfield.

It may not result in more wins considering the schedule and amount of time to recruit. However, it should relieve the frustration of why those losses happened.

Losses should now come because the other team was just better. Not because the coach couldn't decide on a play fast enough, so he burned his last timeout with over 11 minutes left to play.

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