No Need to Remind Sam Pittman of Record Against A&M

In a lopsided series since Aggies, joined SEC, Hogs' coach well aware of history

Author:
Andy Hodges
Updated:
Sep 28, 2023 12:20 PM EDT
Original:
Sep 27, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Oh, Sam Pittman is well aware of Arkansas' history with Texas A&M since 2012. Forget just since the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012 because you can go ahead and count the Razorbacks three straight wins when the two teams started playing again in 2009.

Pointing out A&M has won all of them but once in the series in the last 11 is just playing some math gymnastics. They've won 10 of the 14 games ... since 2009. So much for that whole chest-puffing, "wait until they play in the SEC" argument a lot of people do. Recent history suggests just the opposite of teams coming from the Big 12 into the league.

"You don’t see many series lopsided at 1-10 like that," Pittman said in his press conference Wednesday. "We did go through some rough, rough years as well in there." That's an understatement considering most of the Bret Bielema years and all of Chad Morris. Of course when going .500 in a season is considered progress, that's what happens to a fan base that tends to just shrug it off.

This is a longtime rivalry dating back a century and it's terribly lopsided over the last decade, mainly because the Aggies have more better players and usually coaches that don't finish 2-10 in a season. In College Station, it may happen once, but probably won't happen in back-to-back seasons there with the same coach in charge.

"I would think the rivalry would mean more to us because we’re one of the last 11," he said about the lopsided record in the last 11 games. "Certainly, I’ve been on some of those overtime losses and things where the game looked like it was ours, just like last year and not able to win it. It’s definitely a rivalry for us."

Pittman knows the history of the Hogs and he recalls games better than most people. Especially last year when he thought they were going to score and pull out a win in a goofy 23-21 loss where Cam Little's field goal at the end somehow bounced off the top right upright on a winning field goal as time expired. Coaches don't forget those things.

"If we can get a lead, we’ve got to figure out how to extend the lead and not just try to hold onto it," Pittman said. "We certainly tried that last year and I thought there at the end of the game we were going to score, but I didn’t know what the time on the clock was going to be. Matter of fact, I was worried about scoring too fast, but at that point, we were running the clock and I just wanted to score you know. Then we had an errant snap that killed a lot of that stuff."

The Hogs are still having problems with mistakes this year that they haven't sorted out through the first four games of the year. Now they are playing an A&M team that is playing better than a loss to Miami a couple of weeks ago is showing now. That wasn't due to the offense with former Hogs' coach Bobby Petrino now the offensive coordinator for the Aggies.

Now the problems are in the offensive line with mental mistakes and the defense getting scorched almost as will in the fourth quarter by both BYU and LSU. Pittman knows this, too, but he doesn't need to be reminded about recent history. He's seen over half of them up close and personal.

The Razorbacks find out if anything is improved Saturday at 11 a.m. at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The game will be on the SEC Network and fuboTV.