Arkansas Football: Updated game-by-game predictions for 2020
A new beginning for Arkansas football could lead to a very long fall. How will the Razorbacks fare under new head coach Sam Pittman?
It’s been a minute since the Arkansas Razorbacks were consistently good.
There’s been a little success — three winning seasons since 2011 — but not much else. You can point to April of 2012 as the real start of the downfall in Fayetteville. Head coach Bobby Petrino crashed his motorcycle containing both himself and a former Arkansas volleyball player. He was fired after an investigation brought the situation from bad to worse, Petrino appeared at the press conference while in a neck brace and looking like he’d been in a UFC fight.
Come to think about it, wearing a neck brace and in a neck brace has been an almost perfect summery of the last half decade of Razorbacks football.
Since then, three coaches — four if you count interim coach Barry Lunney Jr. last season — haven’t come anywhere close to reaching No. 3 in the polls in Petrino’s last season.
Enter Sam Pittman.
Pittman takes over a program that’s won two games in each of the past two seasons. He’s no stranger to the Razorbacks, having been an offensive line coach as well as assistant head coach from 2013-15. He had spent the last four years in the SEC East at Georgia, including last season when he was also an assistant head coach.
Pittman’s never been a major college coach, but he was a high school coach from 1987-88 and does have a 11-9-1 record as a junior college head coach from 1992-93. He’s worked his way up the ladder and the leaders at Arkansas hope that trend continues.
With 14 starters returning and the arrival of hyped Florida transfer Feleipe Franks at quarterback, there is some hope for the future in Fayetteville.
The problem is, to say that Pittman and crew are getting thrown into the fire is an understatement. This year’s schedule is a 10-game SEC-only gauntlet that includes virtually every SEC power.
Pittman may prove to be the right guy for the job, but it absolutely won’t be fair to judge him on 2020.