Everything Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman Said After Alabama Loss

No. 2 Alabama ran past No. 20 Arkansas, 49-26, as the Razorbacks took their second straight loss.

Christopher Walsh | Oct 2, 2022

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Alabama Crimson Tide

Here’s what the Arkansas Razorbacks’ official website thought of the loss to Alabama on Saturday afternoon:

The story at the top of the page was sights and sounds from the fall baseball game.

Here’s what football coach Sam Pittman said during his press conference:

Alabama is a really good football team, and a physical team. I thought going in the game was really good on defense and they certainly are. I don't know if Bryce Young got hurt or if coach elected to go with Milroe, but if did [get hurt] I hope that he's fine. He's a really good player, strong competitor. Too many, way too many big plays for them. Not enough for us. Turnover battle was about the same. For whatever reason we didn't start well, and then tried to finally score there right before the half, but we just we didn't start well, and part of that I'm sure is because its Alabama. But we have to do better. We have to play better. And we've got to regroup. Last year we lost three-in-a-row and turned around and won four of the last five, or five of the last six, whatever it might be. We gotta find a way to turn it around. And I know we've played two really good teams the last two weeks, but we've gotta play better regardless of what the score is, what it becomes. We gotta play more consistent, tackle better, convert third downs, things of that nature on offense.

On Alabama being nine of 13 on third downs, and how big was the Milroe 77-yard run?

It was huge. I mean they were down inside their 20, [close] game and went 77. And then they scored a couple plays later, and got it back up to a 12-point game and we didn't answer on offense. That was a big, big play. I'm proud of the team for the way we came out and fought back into the game. I mean we were in it, and that play right there seemed to take a little bit of the wind out of our sail. And we couldn't convert to next time we had the ball. But that was a big, big play, and then you know obviously Gibbs running, I don't think we touched him. So we gotta get better. We gotta tackle better, we seem to say it every week. We gotta eat up space better. On offense we gotta throw the ball better, too. We're not we're right now. We're one-dimensional and we've gotta be able to throw and catch, and protect, all those things. It's all gotta be better 'cause we can't just turn around and hand the ball off and beat really good teams. We gotta do better.

On Alabama’s third downs …

It’s big. I mean, they convert nine and they stay on the field or they convert half of them in they’re off the field half of the time. It’s a huge deal, you know? And that when Bryce was in there they were taking us to empty and kind of picking us apart, and running down the middle some post routes you know were basically wide open. We've gotta get better in coverage. They were big

On strong third quarter after it was a point of emphasis in practice:

We emphasize so many things, you know, a coach sets up here and if it works he says ‘Well I did this and I did that …’ We've been emphasizing tackling and covering and blocking and, you know, stuff too, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But the third down, or the third quarter, excuse me, we just stayed in here and stretched and I talked to them, the captains talked to them, it's the same thing that we did at practice, and we just changed it up. We hadn't really won a third quarter all year, and so we changed it up, and I don't know if it worked or not or because we were down 21. I don't know but I do know the kids answered the challenge and that was that was good to see.

On the onside kick, was that from something you saw in studying Alabama?

That’s what we were seeing it on the tape and we felt like it was there. [Jake] Bates was really good at it and he had done it at his previous school [Texas State]. It just seemed like the right time to use it. It worked and we went down and scored, so that was a good deal.

On the Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson getting hurt:

He hit his head. I don't I don't know. I don't know where he's at to be honest with you. Obviously we didn't bring it back in, so I don't know any more than that.

On the offensive game plan:

Well, I wanted to run some go balls long on them, and we tried that a little bit, but we tried it later. But we’re always gonna try and establish the run, to throw play-action off of it, but we just we either weren't getting open or we weren't throwing it accurately and came off the field. We couldn't stay on the field and against Alabama you're probably not gonna be able to turn around in hand it three times in a row and get a first down all the time, you know? So I was disappointed when I just didn't feel like we threw the ball well -- threw it, caught it, protected it, and all those things go together well, got open, all those things. It just wasn’t there.

On Arkansas receivers:

If you’re talking about today, I just said we didn't throw and catch it very good, you know.

You know you play better defenses than others, and Alabama will be one of the best we played, best corners, cover corners, things of that nature. But I think we've got good receivers. I do. Obviously Thompson didn't play today, he was hurt. But I think we have good receivers. We gotta go back to work and maybe do something a bit different in the quicker game. You know we did try to throw a stop and stuff at a time or two, but maybe something a little quicker where we can take advantage of some slants and some things of that nature.

On not stopping Alabama’s big plays:

It's bad. I mean you sit there and you think you don't get off [the field] and then they make a play, yeah it's very deflating. But that's part of the game, and all that. It's happening too often to us. We gotta figure out how to get off the field when we've had an advantage with the sticks. And it's not that we're not working, it's just that we're not doing it. And part of that has to do with tightness of coverage. Part of it has to do with area in tackling. And tackling still problem for us that we've got to continue to improve on. But sure, it’s very deflating.

Update on wide receiver Warren Thompson:

No. I don't. I mean we thought there was a chance that he could play. [Myles] Slusher was the same way. We thought that he would be able to play and he went out there a little bit but his calf was all tight, and all this kind of stuff. But Warren, he’d hardly practice well at all this week, so we just felt like we'd be better with Ketron [Jackson], Matt [Landers] and Jadon [Haselwood] instead of chancing him out there because he just wasn’t ready.

On the decision to put Cade Fortin in when Jefferson was out:

That decisions been made for a while. He’s our No. 2 quarterback, so we put him in there.

How tough is it to play from behind against Alabama?

Well, it’s hard. We did it all at the whole game last year that over there you know it was maybe getting closer like today except we didn't you know that, didn't end up having a big plays in the fourth quarter. Well, we answered them for most part last year.

On the punt returns, did Max outkick coverage a couple of times?

A couple times we kicked out of the zone and one time we had a gunner on the wrong side of the field. So we didn't have a boundary gunner. Ironically, he returned it to the field, and we had a guy over there, but we couldn't make the play. But I believe the boundary gunner probably would have been down there and had a fair catch. But we didn't have it, went wrong side.

On the message to the team at halftime:

Yeah, I felt like we'd get back in the game as long as we believe we could get back in the game. You know, what happens is – we won a lot of games, you know twelve of our last whatever it is, I guess 12 hour last 18 or whatever, but what happens is you gotta watch it because we can't revert back to getting our batt kicked every week. You gotta watch it because it's hard. We've got to have leadership. That's what the halftime was about the older guys that need to lead, and talk. I think the captains did a nice job at halftime of talking after I got through. But to be honest with you it was just a challenge to go play hard. Play hard, show our character, who we are, what got us here. And we had to make adjustments as a coaching staff, but they had to had to go out there and play hard and I thought they did.

On the timing of the onside kick:

Well, we were down two scores, and I just thought it was good timing. I thought it was there. We were going to the fake field goal too. I called a fake down there when we kicked it to make it to 12 I believe what it ended up getting to, I'd called a fake. That was a fake and we called it off. But I was planning on faking the field goal down there on fourth and five. I like what we what we had planned as much as I like the onside, but the look wasn't there so we just went ahead and kicked it.

On decision-making process on fourth down:

It was fourth and less than three and I thought if we don't take it that he was gonna go for it. They put him in on third-and-13 and scored on us. I don't know, I mean, to be perfectly honest with you I thought he was going to go for it on 4th and three and I thought we could hold him for less than 10 yards on third down. Who knows, maybe get a turnover, you know, or whatever it may be. I always discus that. Everyone says ‘Hey this is what I'm gonna do,’ and we all agreed that was the best thing to do is throw a tunnel screen on the next play for a touchdown.

Did this help you pick a No. 2 running back?

No. I don't think so. I think Rocket’s the guy, and then the other guys are … I don’t know if any of them separated from the other guy. I think they're all good runners but Jimmy may feel different or and I might after I watched the tape, but not right now. I don't think so.

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