We'll Only Know What Sam Wants Us to Know

Saturday's closed scrimmage probably won't be that enlightening
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — While everybody will be scrambling for information Saturday, the only people that actually know won't tell us much.

Only what Sam Pittman wants to tell us.

He said last year in a press conference he would never lie to us, but he was only going to tell us what he wanted us to know.

Fair enough. Politicians do the same thing, so everybody is a little immune to it.

Sam Pittman-Practice
Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman at practice Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022, at the indoor workout facility at the football center in Fayetteville, Ark. (Andy Hodges / allHOGS Images)

College football coaches may be the most paranoid in any sport. They have more tickets to sell and, at most places across the South, the biggest responsibility to generate more money than everybody else in the athletics department.

Colleges are paranoid about anything except rosey predictions and a positive outlook for the coming season. That starts right after the current season ends.

In two weeks, reality hits.

Against Cincinnati in Razorback Stadium on Sept. 3, we'll all know a little bit, then find out some more the next week against South Carolina.

We really won't know what this Arkansas team can be until they line up at AT&T Stadium against Texas A&M on Sept. 24.

You are what the record says you are, whether fans like to hear it or not. Right now, predicting anything is a hobby for just about everybody that cares about the Razorbacks.

I have no idea. The record probably will be somewhere between 6-6 and 10-2. Tell me who's going to get injured, which players won't live up to their billing and what officials will call over a 12-game period and I'll give you a more accurate answer.

You deal with "what-if." That's the biggest waste of energy for a lot of sports fans. It's impossible to measure because "what if" doesn't matter.

Sam probably has a pretty good idea of what kind of team he has this year.

But he's not going to tell us.

Sam Pittman-Practice
Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman during the first workout in pads Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022, on the outdoor practice fields in Fayetteville, Ark. (Andy Hodges / allHOGS Images)

He knows there are too many "what-ifs" out there that he can't control and coaches don't like to speculate on things they can't control.

And he can control what we know about the scrimmage.

Which will be about the positives.

We probably won't hear how big the "clean up" is on things that aren't where they need to be.

But we will find out.

There is a 100% guarantee on that.

Arkansas Divider

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Arkansas Divider

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Andy Hodges
ANDY HODGES

Sports columnist, writer, former radio host and television host who has been expressing an opinion on sports in the media for over four decades. He has been at numerous media stops in Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi.