When the athletic director gives a pessimistic take on the state of the football program days before its next scheduled kickoff, that’s not a great sign for a sitting coach whose tenure continues to head in the wrong direction. And following Saturday’s heartbreaking 32-31 loss loss at Memphis, Sam Pittman’s days as Arkansas coach could be numbered.
Citing current NIL and revenue sharing disadvantages, Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek said this week at the Little Rock Touchdown Club that the Razorbacks program was “not set up to win a national championship” and was “brutally honest” about his university not wanting to operate in the “third lane” with others not up to code with the current guidelines.
Pittman has similarly voiced previous frustrations, but chose not to react to his boss’s dismissal of high-end aspirations earlier this week. Instead, Pittman mentioned unequal playing fields in the past and said he had a game to prepare for against the Tigers, whom the Razorbacks led by three touchdowns before succumbing in the final moments following an ill-timed fumble.
It was an all-too-familiar ending for Pittman, who is 20-22 overall since pushing Arkansas to a top 25 finish in his second season in 2021. That was the height of national relevance for Pittman, who’s been peppered with job security questions every November since.
With Saturday’s setback at Memphis, the Razorbacks have lost at least one nonconference game in every year since the 9-4 season in 2021 and fell to 7-19 in single-possession games. Looking deeper, Pittman is just 2-10 since the start of 2023 in single-possessions matchups, many of those coming in SEC play.
That also includes six losses when scoring 30 or more points, tied for the most in FBS over that span. Nothing’s adding up for Arkansas since that breakout campaign and explains why Pittman was on one of college football’s hottest seats entering the 2025 season.
Arkansas has never posted a winning record in SEC play since Pittman’s arrival ahead of the 2020 season and last week’s 41-35 loss at Ole Miss all but guarantees that will continue this fall with six games left on the league docket against top 25 competition.
Pittman said he wasn’t worried about the hot seat discussion before the season and will surely face the music again following the Razorbacks’ 2-2 start.
“How can we stop that? We can win more games, you know. That’s what we can do,” Pittman said in July at SEC Media Days. “Look, most everything a guy brings on him, he brings on himself, you know. Most things that come out, you earn it. Now, you may disagree with some of it and all that but, I’ve earned that. I mean, I have. To get off of that, we’ve got to win more games.”
Pittman’s not naïve, however. In the same breath, he mentioned how unlikely it was that a coach in the SEC gets 10 or more years at a single stop, citing Mark Stoops at Kentucky as the elder statesman of the group.
It’s a results business and Pittman, now 32-32 with the Razorbacks following Saturday’s loss, hasn’t moved the needle in recent years despite a number of coaching staff changes and roster overhauls through the transfer portal.
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