Arkansas mostly took care of business in a 44-20 win over Florida International. It wasn’t overly impressive because it’s hard to look impressive against a team of FIU’s caliber. But it wasn’t embarrassing, at least.
It looked like it might be embarrassing for a while. After jumping to a 7-0 lead, the Hogs allowed consecutive touchdown drives to fall behind 13-7 after one. But 24-point outburst in the second quarter sealed the game. If not for a pair of missed field goals, the Hogs would have covered the large spread.
The biggest story was KJ Jefferson setting school records for career passing yards and career passing touchdowns. It’s a shame that his career is (or appears to be) ending with a season like this, but what a career it has been. Freshman Isaiah Augustave was excellent, totaling 100 rushing yards in his first extended action of the season. With the Hog running backs being largely disappointing this year, Augustave is a bright spot for the future.
Pittman will be back
The big news dropped Sunday morning: Sam Pittman will return in 2024. I think losing this game would have changed things a bit, but Hunter Yurachek felt confident giving the dreaded vote of confidence after a 24-point win.
Let’s call it what it is: this is a financial decision. If money was no object, I think Pittman would be fired. It doesn’t sound like the major donors to the football program wanted to pony up the cash to pay the $15 million buyout for Pittman (and more than that including his staff, plus buyouts for the next coach and his staff). Of course, Yurachek is the one who negotiated the enormous buyout, a decision that drew criticism even at the time. I would argue that his neck is on the line along with Pittman’s next year. If the Hogs fall apart and go 2-10, I think the trustees of the university will point back to that contract extension as the reason Arkansas couldn’t get off the sinking ship in time and let Yurachek go along with the coach he tied the university to.
Here’s some more important context. There is no way that Yurachek made this decision without first testing the waters. He probably got some kind of idea of how the coaching industry views the Arkansas job and what kind of coaches would be interested. I can assure you that coaches like Washington’s Kalen DeBoer have absolutely no interest in Arkansas, but it’s possible that more reasonable home-run options like Jeff Traylor, Chris Kliemann, and Lance Leipold also appeared uninterested.
Another important piece of context: getting a great offensive coordinator might be easier than getting a great head coach in this cycle. Syracuse fired Dino Babers today, putting yet another veer-and-shoot offensive coach on the market. Babers’ former OC Sean Lewis, who did a fantastic job at Kent State and was doing well at Colorado for being inexplicably demoted, deserves a lot better than what Deion Sanders is putting him through. UNLV’s innovative OC Brennan Marion is a big name in coaching circles would be a perfect fit for what Arkansas wants to do. And while it’s extremely unlikely to happen, Bobby Petrino also needs a job. And of course, if Arkansas upsets Mizzou on Friday and the offense puts up 30+ points, then Kenny Guiton might just get the job.
The Pittman cycle
Let’s look back to 2020, knowing these two pieces of information about the future:
- Arkansas’ 2019 recruiting class, Chad Morris’s last, is really good. It’s filled with studs on both sides of the ball.
- Arkansas’ 2020 recruiting class, Pittman’s first, is mostly not great. That’s not really the staff’s fault, as Arkansas’ program was in a miserable position when Pittman was hired, and there were no can’t-miss in-state prospects.
Given that a recruiting class typically “peaks” across its third and fourth years in the program, we can map out some basic expectations about how the first several years of the Pittman era would go:
- 2020: Do what you can to infuse life into the program
- 2021: Breakout season as 2019 class starts to peak
- 2022: Another strong season as 2019 class is in its final year
- 2023: Rebuilding year, as 2019 class is mostly gone and bad 2020 class should be peaking right now
- 2024: Rebuilding year, as 2020 class is in its final year. The strength of the 2021 class will determine how much of a rebuild this year is
- 2025: Breakout year, as weak 2020 class is finally out the program and the entire program is Pittman’s “full” classes
The first two seasons happened as expected. We realized how good that 2019 class was during the 2021 season, when the Hogs stunned everyone by going 9-4 and winning the Outback Bowl. But after that, things got off track. The Hogs fell to 7-6 in 2022 and now will have 7 or 8 losses in 2023. What went wrong?
Well, the 2022 season can be chalked up to injuries. We can talk about Jalen Catalon, Myles Slusher, and Taurean Carter, but honestly, just Jefferson’s injury alone was the difference between 7-6 and 9-4. The Hogs went 0-3 in games where Jefferson was out or clearly limited, and two of those were one-score games.
From our map above, we see that 2023 probably should have been a step back anyway. I think the disappointment of the 2022 season caused many inside and outside the program to raise the expectations, and they were probably raised to an unreasonable level. All other things being equal, 7-5 would have been fine for 2023 and 2024, with expectation of returning to 8-4 or better in 2025. But Pittman made a critical mistake in hiring Dan Enos, a program-tanking move that caused what should have been a 7-5 season to become a 4-8 or 5-7 season.
Now Pittman is getting another shot at it. Here’s what he needs to do:
- Hold this recruiting class together. Mizzou in particular is trying to raid Arkansas’ very strong recruiting class, and Courtney Crutchfield has already decommitted. Arkansas has to find a way to not let this class slip out of the top 25.
- Nail this OC hire. This is the most important decision of the future of the program for a long time. The right coordinator could get the Hogs back to 7-5 next year. Arkansas might have to pay extra money to get a good one.
- Win in the portal. Unlike OC hires, grad transfers won’t really care about the staff’s long-term future. Arkansas needs at least one receiver, probably a couple of interior offensive linemen, and an edge rusher or two. It’s hard to build an offensive line out of transfers, but the Hogs will bring back both tackles, so it might be doable.
- Make appropriate staff changes. I would guess that Cody Kennedy is probably on the chopping block. I also think that Guiton isn’t going back to being receivers coach if he doesn’t get the OC gig, so the Hogs will also need a good receivers coach.
- Manage expectations. I think 7-5 is the goal for Pittman to keep his job after 2024, and that’s a reasonable goal. The main way he can hold onto fan support is to not embarrass the home fans, and not lose to any non-Power team. The Hogs need to trounce their three cupcake non-conference foes next year. Beating Texas in September, or least competing well, would be ideal.
We can break down OC candidates in a future post. Guiton basically has a one-game audition on Friday. If the offense plays really well and the Hogs win, I would guess he’s the favorite, as the transition would be smoothest with him, and Pittman doesn’t really have time for a major transition. He’s got to get things working immediately.
Other scores of note
New Mexico State 31, Auburn 10. Hugh Freeze probably should have shut his mouth after last week’s game. There is absolutely no reason for him to tell the press that Auburn could have scored more points on Arkansas. Freeze is truly the new Houston Nutt. He makes consistent egotistical remarks, he gets his team up to win one big game every year, and he lays at least one egg every year. At Ole Miss, he lost twice to Vanderbilt and had his best team (2015) get routed by Memphis. This is an incredible egg, though. The Tigers were truly blown out, and the 31-10 score is exactly how this game went.
Mizzou 33, Florida 31. The Mizzou game on Friday is winnable. Arkansas beat Florida, but Mizzou had to survive, converting a 4th-and-18 on their last drive. The Gators are 5-6 and have to beat Jordan Travis-less Florida State next week to make a bowl.
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