Pittman Must Develop Killer Instinct Before Next Season

Former Florida coach Steve Spurrier should serve as model for Razorback coach going forward

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Dec 29, 2022 9:25 PM EST

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Standing frustrated on the sideline of the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Razorback head football coach Sam Pittman switched on the talk function of his headset and laid into Arkansas offensive line coach Cody Kennedy.

Kennedy's line wasn't performing as Pittman thought it should, so he hauled off and unleashed a flurry of choice words that he would later publicly apologize for during his postgame press conference.

"I need to apologize to Cody Kennedy because he took a few lashings – I mean he took a few bad comments on the headsets tonight – and I see we rushed for 400 yards, so I want to publicly apologize to Cody Kennedy," Pittman said with a bit of a chuckle. "He took it a little bit and I’m looking at this and I’m going, ‘Hmmm, I should shut up a little bit.’"

Arkansas officially finished with 394 yards rushing, although it should be noted that 83 of those yards came in the final 24 seconds of regulation plus three overtimes, and managed a total of 681 yards while not giving up a single sack.

That's with the SEC's second leading rusher, Raheim Sanders, getting injured after only three carries, the shuffled offensive line without All-American center Ricky Stromberg watching starter TyKiest Crawford get carted off the field in the opening minutes, and freshman E'Marion Harris coming in for essentially a game and a half in one night.

The offensive line definitely wasn't the problem.

Pittman pointed out the problem. Whether he meant to remains up for debate.

In three years as a head coach, he just hasn't become one with his inner Steve Spurrier. The Ole Ball Coach may have lost his edge a little while at South Carolina, but back in his heyday with Florida, it was his goal to beat teams by 50.

Spurrier considered it an insult to the opposing team to stop trying and detrimental to the development of his team to simply hand the ball off once the back-ups came in.

And he's right. It's way more insulting to have a team start taking it easy on you and trying to spare your feelings by pulling back. It's downright demeaning.

Unless a playing surface is occupied by someone who doesn't belong on the field of competition, having someone think of you as so low and pathetic that you require their mercy is the most angering thing imaginable.

The insult of Arkansas calling off the dogs in an effort to run out the clock to avoid making Kansas look bad is exactly what the Jayhawks needed to rally their way back.

"We went ultra conservative against Ole Miss up 42-6 and they came back into the game a little bit," Pittman said. "I tried not to until we got down to about the eight minute mark. I was telling KB that he could just do whatever he wanted to do with it."

But the Razorbacks' drive chart shows the exact opposite. The Razorbacks kicked it into mercy mode back during the third quarter and didn't get aggressive until the game got under the eight minute mark.

3:15 3Q

Two runs followed by a pass on 3rd & 9 leading to a punt.

13:55 4Q

Three straight runs followed by a pass on 3rd & 17 then a punt.

9:42 4Q

Three straight runs and a punt.

3:47 4Q

This was the most aggressive drive of the sequence for Arkansas. The Hogs still opened with their standard two runs followed by a pass. However, the pass was for 43 yards to Matt Landers, giving the Razorbacks a first down at the Kansas 29-yard line with the Jayhawks clinging to a single timeout.

All the situation required was three straight runs in the middle of the field. Kansas would be forced to use its last timeout and watch helplessly while Arkansas ran down the clock and went up 41-23 on a Cam Little kick.

Following that general practice would have given Kansas the ball down 18 with 1:20 left to play in the most conservative of estimates provided either Rashod Dubinion or AJ Green didn't find a crease for a first down.

Instead, Pittman chose to personally make an aggressive call on offense on second down with exactly three minutes left while in field goal range with the Jayhawks having just used their final timeout.

"Sometimes just don’t fumble the ball when you don’t want to," Pittman said. "[We're] up 15 there. We had run them out of timeouts. I’m the one who told KJ to run the reverse. It was there. They had the whole darn team inside and I thought we’d get outside of them and get the first down and the game was over. Unfortunately, it was ruled a fumble."

Everyone gets something to focus on as far as improvement in the offseason and ruthless aggression will be one for Pittman. He watched two massive leads evaporate and almost committed the cardinal sin of pulling a Bret Bielema twice late in the season.

As Razorback fans know, that will get a coach fired while walking off the field.

Modern offenses can put up points in a hurry, so the general rule of thumb is to keep with your usual aggressiveness until the number of touchdowns you are up equals the number of minutes on the clock plus one.

It's just too risky and Arkansas isn't a good enough program, especially on defense, nor loved by the referees enough to take the foot off the gas.

It's a lesson that comes with experience and Pittman got enough experience in that area this year that Arkansa fans should never see it again under his regime.