One of the great coincidences of Arkansas football in the post-Bobby Petrino epoch is the tale of Bret Bielema and Sam Pittman.
Bielema picked Arkansas up out of the mud in the aftermath of Petrino’s motorcycle wreck and subsequent void of a season that was John L. Smith’s. Pittman, Arkansas’ current head coach, did the same after Chad Morris made the Razorbacks a laughingstock in the sport for the second time in less than a decade.
The irony, however, will likely take weeks to become clear if Arkansas media personality, and former Razorbacks defender, David Bazzel’s remark holds true.
Pittman’s baby-bird hold on the rope that is his job slipped to a Looney Tunes-style pinky grasp after Arkansas lost Saturday to Memphis, 32-31. In God’s little joke, the Hogs lost the same way they did the week before at Ole Miss: driving toward the end zone near the end of the game, Arkansas lost a fumble, this time inside the opposition’s 10 yard line. Both losses, too, came at the hands of the opposition’s back-up quarterback. Memphis needed just one first down to run out the clock and send the hang-dog visitors back to Fayetteville as losers.
The consequences may be dire. Bazzel said on Monday’s “Morning Mayhem” he anticipated Arkansas brass soft-firing Pittman behind closed doors before season’s end if the Razorbacks lost on the Mississippi River. It may be another two or three games from this point, however, before the school announces the parting of ways if things continue to go south, according to the creator of the Battle Line Rivalry trophy. The man who coached Bielema’s offensive line with Arkansas from 2013-15 would see his own tenure as Hogs head man come to end thanks to a culmination of the results of the corresponding years a decade later.
Arkansas vs Memphis’ Severe Consequence
“I think if he loses this game (Memphis), he’s done for sure,” Bazzel said. “Then the question is when they make it public.”
The difference is what the movers-and-shakers have learned in that ensuing span. If Bazzel’s prognostication comes true, they at least learned not to make a decision in public. Bielema was fired as he walked off the field after losing to Missouri in the 2017 season finale. Interim athletics director Julie Cromer held a press conference a couple hours later inside Barnhill Arena, corroborating Bielema’s statement to reporters that he had been let go.
Even if he knows he’s a dead man walking in the coming weeks, expect Pittman to keep mum. As much as the Oklahoma native played loose with the local media during his days as a Bielema lieutenant – he was famous for showing up to his weekly availability wearing flip-flops and putting his feet up in a folding chair – he and the college football landscape have changed immeasurably since. Information is much more tightly controlled, personalities much less showcased.
Through Pittman’s five-plus seasons in his first job as head coach, Arkansas carries a 32-32 overall record with a 14-29 mark in Southeastern Conference play. Those winning percentages aren’t far off from what Bielema had when he exited after five full seasons: 29-34, 11-29. It’d also be why Pittman would ultimately be let go. The Razorbacks are the definition of mediocre, which, in the SEC, translates to ‘bad,’ over the last 15 years.
“They’re not going to fire him before Notre Dame, but he’s done,” Bazzel said. “I don’t think they’re going to wait til the end of the year. I think at some point midway through the season.”
Perhaps the biggest bummer for Razorbacks fans, and the Razorbacks themselves, with Bazzel’s remarks (whether accurate or not), is what they portend for the rest of Arkansas’ season. Any subsequent wins, save a miraculous win-out situation, will ring hollow. In the big picture, so would losses.
One saving grace is that Arkansas likely wouldn’t see a mass exodus that wasn’t already coming, such have been the changes – what with the transfer portal, NIL and revenue sharing – wrought in the 2020s. Those changes have served as the harbinger to the premature speculation of Pittman’s status.
National radio personality Bobby Bones, who is an Arkansas native and big Razorbacks fan, has seen enough in 2025, anyway:
Whether Arkansas needs a hard restart or small tweaks, reasonable people can disagree. Mike Irwin of Razorback Nation said earlier this week the Razorbacks need an Arkansas Man as the next head coach.
Theoretically, that’s someone who can rev up the, apparently, untapped sources of money and corresponding excitement for Arkansas football in the region. (I wonder how much Bones has provided.) Either way, the school is woefully underfunded in football compared to their SEC brethren, as athletics director Hunter Yurachek so infamously admitted a few hours later on Monday to Bazzel at the Little Rock Touchdown Club.
The program’s chicken-or-egg scenario thus continues. Not enough of Arkansas’ deep-pocketed would-be donors are supplying the funds the Razorbacks need to consistently win, so the apologist fans say. Arkansas, meanwhile, doesn’t win because the donors don’t supply funds, the apoplectic ones follow.
Maybe nothing changes, though. It’s possible Yurachek has one foot out the door already, as Irwin suggested. Pittman, too, could be eyeballing, especially now, his exit plan. Those who are angriest at him have said that’s been the case for a couple years. Incorrectly, of course, but generally speaking angry people aren’t right-headed.
Sort of like Arkansas was 10 years ago when it got itself into this quagmire in the first place.
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