Everything Sam Pittman said after Arkansas’ victory over Kent State
Sometimes fans, especially when their favorite team is struggling, dog the media that cover their favorite team for not asking pointed enough questions.
Arkansas’ faithful can’t do that this week, at least.
Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman had to pause more than a few time to measure his words in the post-game press conference after Arkansas’ 28-6 win over Kent State on Saturday. The margin was about half as much as most predicted.
Pittman never became angry, per se, but he was exasperated at points. A combination of the direct questions and his team’s mediocre performance frustrated. To Pittman’s credit, he does not have an antagonistic relationships with Arkansas’ media and he apologized one time Saturday after one of his remarks.
Check out everything Pittman had to say below.
Note: Remarks are edited for clarity and some may be paraphrased.
Opening statement
Well, I want to give Kent State a lot of credit. To do what happened to them last week and them to come back and play like they did, I want to give them a lot of credit. They had a nice game plan … We had nine drives all day. They were very physical. I thought they out–physicaled us in the first half, especially … The score was much closer than 28-6 I felt like and he did a wonderful job with his team. They’ll have a good football team if they continue to work through him. We have a lot to get better at. I’m sure you’ll ask me about it.
Runs for KJ Jefferson
Well, I want to give Kent State a lot of credit. To do what happened to them last week and them to come back and play like they did, I want to give them a lot of credit. They had a nice game plan … We had nine drives all day. They were very physical. I thought they out–physicaled us in the first half, especially … The score was much closer than 28-6 I felt like and he did a wonderful job with his team. They’ll have a good football team if they continue to work through him. We have a lot to get better at. I’m sure you’ll ask me about it.
How to fix run-game issues
I think you open up the second half and we run outside the kickout block. That’s not the O-line. There’s a lot of reasons we’re not dominating the line of scrimmage like we have before. Some of it is we’re just not moving the line of scrimmage up front like we have in the past. … We’re just not knocking them off the football right now. We’re not particularly well on the edge. We’re just not blocking particularly well, period. We’re just not a real physical football team. I thought we were a little better in the second half.
Auditions at offensive line?
I don’t know why you’d audition. Wouldn’t make any sense. Probably want to play guys you feel like have the talent and have the right to maybe be a starter. Maybe the word is audition.
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Luke Hasz's solid game
We had 2nd-and-18 and he got about eight, maybe seven, eight to get us to the next one. Just seemed like he turned up and got a first down on one. He’s a tough guy. He’s blocking better. But he’s a guy we have to continue to target.
Dwight McGlothern's injury
Nudie has turf toe, so we were checking him out before the game. He didn’t move very well when we put him out there the first play and we put Stewart out there. I thought he had a pretty good game.
Antonio Grier breakout
First play. Pretty good way to start it. I don’t think he’s 100 percent to be honest with you. But we needed him to play with Pooh being out, too, in the first half. I think Grier will end up being better against the run and things of that nature, but right now, we’re still trying to figure out who that other guy besides Jaheim Thomas is. Pooh’s been hurt. We think he can be that guy. But we’ll have to look at the tape and figure out between him and Grier.
Isaac TeSlaa can catch
I kept telling (offensive coordinator) Dan (Enos), I kept saying “let’s go, let’s go, let’s go” because I didn’t want to get it reviewed. The guy can catch. We didn’t particularly throw it well today. We’ve got to figure out all that kind of stuff. He made some TeSlaa catches that he always does. Armstrong made a nice catch down in our end zone, too.
Good day for transfers
I think they’ve played well. Defensively, I don’t know, we had a lot of sacks. They haven’t scored many points on us. I was frustrated at half because we couldn’t get off the field. We weren’t giving up points, but time. The game plan was going exactly how they wanted it to go minus scoring a lot of points. What would happen if we didn’t have Stewart today? Jaheim. All these guys on the inside. Grier picked a pass for a touchdown. We’re very fortunate we hit pretty good for what we think.
Time-of-possession changed big after half
We were just trying to get them off the field. We were just trying to score, obviously that last drive, what was that, six minutes or something like that. But, no, we were trying to score any way that we could. We were trying to find runs we could run. Isn’t the game funny? It’s different now. We had a guy wide-open early in the middle and we dropped a pass. Last week we were catching everything, made the 4th-and-1s. When you don’t do that, the game changes. The time changes. The possessions change. Early we couldn’t throw, couldn’t catch it, couldn’t run it. Defense kept us in the game.
Future offensive line rotations
We’re not the only team in the world that plays five o-lineman. I’m trying to figure out who our best lineman are. If they earn opportunities to play, what’s the difference between o-lineman and d-lineman? We played nine of them guys. I understand we’re supposed to play five guys. We do. That ain’t why we’re not running the ball, guys.
Arkansas' goal-line stand
That was unbelievable. No. 27 came in there and made the first one. Then we ganged the next one. Landon at the end, that was unbelievable. He took off like he was running 100 meters. The outcome of the game was we were going to win, but it showed a little bit.
Arkansas yet to allow touchdown
I think they’ve done well. We’ve played teams like this in the past and they’ve scored more than six on us. I think we’ve done well. We’re still learning. But I think they’re playing hard. Trying to get better. Right now, guys, when you go through two games, you really, in all honesty, you don’t know what you have yet. You’ve got to get them out there to really figure out who you really have. …. We really don’t know what we have in a game yet until we get them out there. We’ll find out who should play more reps than others.
BYU next week
I know we have KJ. I know we’ve got left tackle. Right tackle. I’m trying to find more than 22 guys. I know who we have. I’m trying to find out how many guys we can win with. We’ve had the greatest opportunity in America to do that with Western Carolina and Kent State. We’re 2-0. I’m trying to find who we can win in the SEC with. I’m not concerned about BYU because we played three corners and four linebackers and all that. I think we’re helping our football team for SEC play.
Unhappy locker room at halftime
It wasn’t good, bud. But we were talking about adversity all the time. We were saying it don’t have to get there. … When you have a half, an entire half of problems, you know? It wasn’t a panic, but it was basically, we’re hitting them, they’re gaining three when we hit them. Basically I thought we were getting out-strained, out wanted-to. We talked about that and how to fix it. … On offense, I told Dan, I’m not worried about how many rush yards we have. I’m trying to score a point. I don’t care. We weren’t throwing and catching it very good, either. A lot of times you can hang your hat on one of them. … (Second half) was better, but it still wasn’t good. But I think they played harder.
Arknasas needed to be surprised
You look around the country and it’s happened for years. You get surprised. In other words, you get surprised and you lose or you get surprised and you win. Obviously the second is a lot better than the first. I felt like we had a good week of practice. I did. I thought distractions were to a minimum. Obviously Rocket. But we didn’t come out like I thought we would come out on a home opener and that bothers me. I love our kids. I love the locker room. The culture. I think we’ll fix all this. I think we’ll play a much better football game against, no disrespect, a much better football program next week.
