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Arkansas football head coach Sam Pittman has been in the coaching game for a long time as he started his career at Pittsburg State as a graduate assistant back in 1984. Pittman has had numerous stops at the high school and college level, and he landed with the Razorbacks back in 2020. There were a lot of rumors going around Pittman retiring last season, but he is back for the 2025 season.
Sam Pittman isn't quite done yet. He had his replacement surgery this offseason, and he is ready to tackle another season of Arkansas football. He has three years left on his contract, but when that is up, retirement might be more likely.
“Everybody’s got an opinion, mine’s the only one that really matters,” Pittman said, according to an article from On3. “I said, whenever I signed the contract after the 2021 season, I signed for five more years. And then we won seven-plus games, which was in my contract, one time that I could get an extension. So I have three years, and I always said that I wanted to coach through that obligation. That’s what I want to do, after that, I don’t know.”
Now that Pittman has fixed his hip issue, he's feeling a lot better health-wise.
“Part of that saying was the way I looked,” he added. “I had a hip that was terrible. I probably looked older than I am. I’ve been out walking two miles a day now, and I feel great. I love my job and this team. Everybody in this business is going through the same thing with portal rosters. It just seems to get magnified at times in our state. My goal is to coach, at least through what my contract is.”
Dealing with the transfer portal and NIL is something that every coach is going through. It is a challenge for the entire country.
“The toughest part about the job right now is that you’re not in revenue sharing, but you’re in collectives,” Pittman said. “You’re buying players, and if you don’t have the same amount of money as somebody else, then it could be taken as if you don’t want the player. I’m obviously for revenue sharing, because I think it’ll even out. You’ve got to take the personal feelings out of it, because kids have the opportunity to make money. I understand every bit of that. But to turn over the roster each year, everybody does it. We just seem to have the biggest turnovers. That’s the most difficult part of the job.”
The Arkansas football team does have a new GM, and Pittman is hoping that will help relieve some of the difficulties.
“There are too many hands in it,” Pittman said. “In other words, you’ve got the parents, you’ve got the kid, you’ve got the agent, you’ve got your university, you’ve got your budget. There’s a lot of freaking hands going through that. Hopefully, with our new GM, we’ll cut some of that down. Anybody in the country can be an agent, so you’re dealing with that. You think you’re about ready to get a commitment, and here comes somebody out of the blue. It’s very tiring.”
One of Sam Pittman's biggest qualms with this new era of college football is the fact that there are two windows for the transfer portal.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand how we would have a portal after spring football,” he said. “I can’t understand that in spring football, when you’re trying to figure out what your team’s going to look like. You’ve lost this senior, you’ve lost this guy in the portal. You’ve done this, you’ve done that. Let’s see who’s going to replace who, and what our team’s going to look like. And then after spring ball, we have another portal.”
He doesn't think that teams should be able to add to their roster after spring ball.
“At the end of spring ball, you should know who’s on your team,” Pittman said. “And, ‘Oh, man, we’re not very good at X position.’ Well, that’s just how it is. You can’t get somebody else. That’s your team. I’m not speaking for every coach, but I believe there are a lot of coaches out there who would agree with me. The second portal, you’re getting shook down twice.”
Sam Pittman clearly has some issues with the current college football landscape, but he is still going strong as the Arkansas football head coach.
