HawgBeat - Will team unity be difference in strong Arkansas football season?
Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman believes that his Razorback football team is more unified than ever.
arkansas.rivals.com
Coming off a 4-8 (1-7 SEC) football campaign, Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman needs his reworked and self-proclaimed unified roster to help flip the Razorbacks' fortunes in a tenure-defining 2024-25 season.
Culture is everything in college athletics. If you have a weak foundation in your program, everything can snowball and tumble until players just let go of the rope. Arkansas has been a victim of that in the past (cough cough, Chad Morris), but that was never expected to be an issue under the always-smiling Pittman.
Then, last year happened. What started as a hopeful season with a new offensive coordinator and third-year starting quarterback quickly went downhill after a home loss to BYU, and that was the effective nail in the coffin only three weeks into the schedule. Why? A lack of strong team culture.
Tasked with rebuilding his team's identity ahead of a win-at-all-costs season, Pittman hired strong-willed offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino and mandated that his Razorbacks went through a rigorous character-building fall and spring.
"We tried to really stress them this offseason with our eight-week lifting program," Pittman said during a Thursday appearance on The Morning Rush. "I don't think you can really find out about anybody until you stress them, until times are hard and so we really wanted to do that this spring."
Leadership can't be the responsibility of the coaches alone, players have to rise above and will their teammates to succeed even when times get tough. Arkansas will be relying on some new faces to pave the way, including the signal caller position.
"Taylen Green is a guy — you need a leader at quarterback, he's got a very unique presence about him," Pittman said. "When you have your bigs like Cam Ball and Landon Jackson and Xavien Sorey and then you go back on offense with (Keyshawn) Blackstock and (Fernando) Carmona and those guys, when you have your bigs as leaders, you can have a strong football team."
Will that be enough for Pittman to reimagine the success of his nine-win 2021 season and re-earn the trust of Razorback faithful across the state? Five of Arkansas' eight losses last year came within a possession, so what's to say that a stronger team bond won't turn those into victories?
It won't be easy, especially with another difficult set of matchups, but don't count out culture and comradery in the win-loss equation for the Hogs.
"I really like the way that they interact with each other on the field," Pittman said. "They take care of each other, they knock the hell out of each other and then they go out to dinner.
"It's very, very hard right now with the portal and NIL to have a really tight football team, it just is. We're very fortunate that we got the type of kids on our team where I feel like this is as close a team as we've had since I've been here."
