Sam Pittman Using Old Sales Technique to Improve Hogs' Recruiting

Getting players is old-fashioned salesmanship and that's what Razorbacks are doing to get better

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas may be opening some eyes in recruiting ... at least now.

Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman has them ranked No. 3 right now in the 247Sports composite rankings.

Don't expect the Hogs to be there in December. Sorry, but that's just the realities, but they aren't going to jump from the mid-20's in the rankings to around the top in one year.

When that happens it is usually followed by people in suits asking questions.

Andy Hodges / allHOGS Image

Now they are in the stage where they are recruiting against teams that are in those top places around signing day. Pittman wants the same players the normal leaders are trying to get.

"We’re in battles with everybody," he said last week during spring practice. "That’s where Arkansas should be, but we weren’t that way in at least a year and a half of recruiting."

That's what happens when you stumble into a program that hasn't recruited consistently well in a decade and hasn't been talking to a group like they are now probably since the mid-1970's.

Oh, there have certainly been exceptions. We're talking about a few years of players that could land in the NFL. Some at a big-time level.

Championship-level coaches recruit players that can play at the next level. They don't mess with the ones that are projects.

Pittman is starting to sound like he's trying to get there.

"What happens is you go, ‘Well, ‘ol kid plays hard, maybe we’ll turn him into a superstar,’" Pittman said talking about what he's told his staff. "That usually doesn’t happen because he has to have something, some size, something like that."

Andy Hodges / allHOGS Images

With the pandemic restrictions slowly disappearing, he's finally able to do things a little more than the way he's been forced to deal with it.

"You make less mistakes in recruiting by going to see them and then have them in camp," Pittman said. "For a majority of my head coaching, we haven’t been able to do that.

The recruiting board has also changed. That's usually just a big thing with names slung on it. Pro teams do it for drafts.

Colleges do it, too. The trick is wasting time chasing players they were never really going to have a shot at getting in the past.

"Where we’re pretty good right now is our recruiting board," Pittman said. "You make mistakes in recruiting when you don’t have anybody on your board that you can get."

Andy Hodges / allHOGS Images

Now those better players fall into the "getable" category, to use the copyrighted phrase from Ruscin & Zach on ESPN Arkansas.

Now they just have to get 'em to Fayetteville.

Which will be interesting in today's world. You keep wonder when we see de-commitments across the landscape of college recruiting, due to the ever-changing (and increasing) name, image and likeness thing.

That's the biggest wildcard.

And nobody knows what's going to happen.

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