FAYETTEVILLE — Sam Pittman hasn’t been a Power 5 head coach very long, but he pulled out some savvy on Monday that proved he’s adept at playing the long game following Saturday’s 37-0 debacle at No. 2 Georgia.
The Razorbacks (4-1, 1-1 SEC) fell five spots to No. 13 in The Associated Press Top 25 heading into Saturday’s 11 a.m. SEC West showdown at No. 17 Ole Miss (3-1, 0-1).
Pittman said it made no sense to lay into his team after the mistake-prone, shaky performance against Georgia.
“If I make a mountain out of a mole hill because we went and got kicked,” Pittman began before changing course.
“We’ve got to correct the situation. We’ve got to do better. We’ve got to cut the penalties out. We’ve got to do better and we’ve got to coach better. But if I go totally off and start having meetings with the players and all this stuff, I think I’m sending a message that I’m panicking, and I’m not.”
Pittman followed by restating his belief in the roster.
“We’ve got a good football team and we got our butt kicked by a really good football team,” he said. “We don’t like it and we’re not accepting it, but I’ll be damned if Georgia’s going to make us lose this Ole Miss game.”
The Rebels are also coming off a thumping, falling 42-21 at No. 1 Alabama last week after being shut out in the first half.
“You go into that place against the No. 1 team in the country, and you don’t play really well in all areas, you don’t execute and make mistakes, they’ll knock you down real quick,” Ole Miss Catch Lane Kiffin said.
“This is the SEC, the SEC West. You go play the No. 1 team, now you come home to a top-15 team.”
The Razorbacks are currently listed as a 6 1/2-point underdog, which is familiar territory for the program in recent seasons.
“Look, we’ve been underdogs in 14 of our 16 games, including Saturday,” Pittman added. “We’ve never been favored to win an SEC game. We’re doing things right. We just have to do them better.”
Arkansas was indeed an underdog in all 10 conference games last season and in its first three this season, so the Razorbacks have logged four “upset” SEC wins in 12 league games under Pittman, plus a 40-21 rout of No. 15 Texas as an underdog on Sept. 11. Arkansas has won its only two games as a favorite under Pittman, 38-17 over Rice and 45-10 over Georgia Southern.
One of those SEC upsets occurred on homecoming last Oct. 17 in a 33-21 win over Ole Miss.
In that game, the first meeting as head coaches between Pittman and Kiffin, the Rebels outgained Arkansas 442-394 in total offense, but the Razorbacks intercepted Matt Corral six times and logged seven total takeaways. Arkansas linebacker Grant Morgan sealed the win with the fifth Corral interception, which he returned 23 yards for a touchdown with 3:07 remaining to set the final score.
Hudson Clark secured the Razorbacks’ final interception, his third of the game, four plays later.
Arkansas reached the Ole Miss 1-yard line on long runs by Feleipe Franks and Trelon Smith and ended the game in Victory formation with a kneel down.
The Rebels have been looking forward to the chance to avenge that loss for almost an entire year and even borrowed from the looks that gave them trouble.
“I think they’re second in the country in pass defense,” Kiffin said on Monday. “This is the scheme we struggled with a year ago, and we basically switched to it for our defense because it’s really good.”
While the Ole Miss faithful will be rowdy on Saturday, it will be difficult for them to match the intensity of the nearly 93,000 fans at Sanford Stadium, who had been challenged by Georgia Coach Kirby Smart to show up early, be loud and make it difficult on the Hogs.
“In all honesty, I think everybody saw we just weren’t ready for the grand stage yet, Pittman said. “And that’s all of us.
“This is going to be a big stage because it’s ESPN and all those things. But you know the “College GameDay” atmosphere and the 93,000, there was a lot of kids after the game, after I spoke to them, who said it’s the loudest crowd and they hadn’t ever been in anything like that. And we tried to simulate it in practice and obviously didn’t have it turned up loud enough.”
Pittman said he and the coaching staff are mulling over ways to get out to a faster start in the 11 a.m. kickoff and not be as impacted by the crowd.
The Razorbacks had four false starts, an illegal snap and two ineligible receiver downfield penalties on offense at Georgia, plus three defensive offsides flags, two of which were declined because the Razorbacks had more serious infractions on the same plays.
“I think Georgia had a lot to do with that,” Pittman said of looking unprepared for the 11 a.m. start. “I think it’ll just be try to get a different mindset going in there.”
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October 05, 2021 at 02:02PM
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Arkansas, Ole Miss try not to let losses linger - WholeHogSports
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