Pittman selling Arkansas above everything and it paid off Wednesday

It was clear Wednesday afternoon that new Arkansas coach Sam Pittman hasn’t done a whole lot of the press conferences like he did after getting seven players for the 2020 class.

He looked a little surprised with nearly every single chair filled in the concrete bunker that serves double-duty as the media room in the football center and may be the best shelter in Northwest Arkansas in the event of a tornado or a random bomb headed in.

Pittman started off kinda figuring it out as he went, but what did become clear is he probably understands the job of being the Razorback coach better than anybody hired in a couple of decades.

It’s why he made it clear that in this recruiting period they aren’t looking at any ratings and really aren’t counting the number of available scholarships. He figures there will be plenty of room for transfers or junior college players.

“Right now it doesn’t seem to be too big of a problem, you know?” He said. “We will fix that when it comes.”

The Hogs never have been near the top in the recruiting rankings. They’ve finished in the top 10 once about 20-something years ago and one other time in the top 20.

History shows for whatever reason nobody is going to win signing day.

Pittman understands that, although he’s never going to say it publicly. He also has looked at the current roster he inherited and knows there’s opportunity he can sell to recruits ahead of the February signing date.

“This next go around, there may be some guys that we’re going, ‘Hey, this guy’s a little light but has got great feet,’” he said Monday. “Or we may go that way a little bit more, we might not, but we’re basically trying to recruit guys that we think can come in here and challenge for a position early in their career.”

Pittman deflected getting into specifics about any current players. Oh, he’s looked at the films but he’s not going to throw anybody under the bus, but he also saw some talent and the guess is he’d just as soon not tip his hand either way.

There are signs this coach can recruit. He managed to get Myles Slusher, a four-star safety out of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, who was committed since April to Oregon.

Pittman found out when Slusher called him at 11:45 Tuesday night.

“Actually, I was driving home,” he said. “He called me and usually if they call you at 11:45, it’s not to tell you they’re going to go someplace else. I’ve yet to ever get a player at his press conference that he didn’t tell me he was coming before the press conference.”

Think about that a minute. Pittman has the job for a week and sells a four-star safety committed to Oregon to flip to Arkansas. He’s not going to pull that off 20 times a year … or even 10, but it is a sign to watch this.

Right now, though, he has the overwhelming majority of his first recruiting class still on campus. He’s managed to hang on to the majority of the best recruiting class in the last few years (2019) and that includes 16 redshirt freshmen.

In addition there will be 13 sophomores and 11 juniors.

There is some talent on the roster. Probably not enough to make a run for an SEC West title, but the only people thinking the 4-20 record over the last two years was as simple as a complete lack of talent.

The opinion from this corner is a complete lack of development and motivation was more to blame for that. In other words, they’ve been the unwilling because they were led by the unknowing.

That will change.

“I want to get the best players in America because as ya’ll know, I truly believe that Arkansas is the best place in America,” he said Monday.

Those words haven’t been heard around Fayetteville by a head football coach in a long time.

Pittman has seen some bad teams. As a career assistant, he’s probably got a plan of how he would do things.

Now he’s just got to prove it’s a plan that will produce wins.