Hogs Not Aiming for Title This Year, Just a League Win

Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman just wants to simplify things in effort to get a win

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
Oct 24, 2023 1:36 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — We are obviously figuring out more every day on why Arkansas coach Sam Pittman went ahead and pulled the rip cord on Dan Enos as offensive coordinator before Halloween. He over-loaded things, to make it simple.

While Enos may have an offense with some pro-style schemes, the Razorbacks didn't have enough experience in the system or even in town to learn a pro-style playbook. In case you didn't know, those things are huge. That's why so few rookies make much of a splash when they get to the NFL. There's a lot to process, especially for offensive linemen.

Yes, there are always exceptions, but those are fairly rare in the offensive line. It requires the quarterback to do a lot of reads that usually need a couple of years seeing in live game action without the extreme practice limits in college. NFL teams spend more time on practices and meetings than colleges get for the entire week, including three hours for the game.

"Nothing ever came easy for us this year," Hogs coach Sam Pittman said Monday afternoon. "We've got to do some things differently and one of them is to cut down on volume. I've been meeting with those guys all morning on that, and we'll go from there."

He could have just said, simply, "Dan threw too much at KJ (Jefferson) and everybody on offense." Players can learn, but it takes time and they have to be playing, not thinking so much. That's apparently what Enos couldn't get through his head. There will be mistakes trying to learn on the job instead of just playing.

Under Kendal Briles' system, Jefferson only had to make one read on passes and either throw it or save the play. They didn't get a step behind. The entire offense looked completely dysfunctional at times through the first half of the season and it wasn't because of poor coaching, no matter what your junior high experience taught you.

In the SEC, the best players don't play at that level thinking about what to do instead of playing. When things click and they figure it out, they start playing better. That's been true for decades.

Pittman probably decided to kick Enos to the curb and go back to the closest thing he could to replicate last season and what the players can do best.

"We’ve got to allow KJ to take some of the things off his plate that we were obviously trying to teach him for now and for his future," Pittman said. "We need to take those things off his plate because he’s not playing fast and he’s not as accurate throwing the football as what he has in the past. Some of those things have to be mentally. They have to be mental and and we’ve got to take some things off his plate as well."

There was some indications that Enos just flat wasn't willing to do what Jefferson can do best. Apparently the best example that can describe what finally came to a head.

"What’s working has got to continue to be called," Pittman said. "Sometimes nothing’s working, so it’s hard to call something. We can improve in our running game. We can move the pocket and do some things where we’re not sitting back there all the time. I talked about 29 drop back passes in a game is hard to protect for us right now, so we can’t do that."

It also sounded like Pittman had talked about that very thing with Enos a few times. If a coordinator just flat ignores instructions from the coach, sooner rather than later heads are going to roll. With a 2-6 record, Pittman wasn't going to continue letting a stubborn coordinator ignore what the head coach wants. That rolling pocket thing sounds like it was a pretty big deal.

Jefferson is better moving around and rolling out with a run-pass option. They won games for a couple of years doing that. They also apparently practiced it a lot, too. "We just didn’t do it (in games)," Pittman said.

Pittman's not going to keep beating a dead horse. Enos is out, Pittman just wants to win these last four games, which is going to be a tall order running last year's offense at its peak or whatever has to be done.

The Hogs have the week off before going to Gainesville, Fla., to play Florida on Nov. 4. They are looking for the program's first win over there. Kickoff for the game is 11 a.m. and it will be televised on ESPN2 and fuboTV.