Yurachek replaces nonsense of last few years with some sense

When Frank Broyles finally tired of Lou Holtz’ increasing lack of interest in finding players at Arkansas in 1983 and brought in Ken Hatfield, one of the sage old observers had a comment that jumped to mind today.

“We’ve replaced nonsense with sense,” someone said during Hatfield’s first spring practice, although it sounds exactly like something Wilson Matthews would have said nobody remembers for sure.

Hunter Yurachek didn’t hire Chad Morrs, but two years of watching what went downhill from the first game in 2018 to not even being that competitive against Western Kentucky was enough.

He had already gotten the aim steady for a few weeks before pulling the trigger.

After a flirtation with a flashy hire in Lane Kiffin, he quietly turned to likely what was needed desperately for the Razorbacks: an old line coach that just puts his head down and goes to work.

Enter Sam Pittman.

His infectious personality is probably what put him over the top in the entire hiring process. Plus he wanted to be the coach of the Hogs more than anybody since Houston Nutt rolled through a search committee and knocked Tommy Tuberville out of the way in 1997.

Yurachek replaced what has amounted to eight years of complete nonsense with a common sense approach to rebuilding a program that is the worst in the SEC.

“It’s time for our football program to no longer be at the bottom of the Southeastern Conference,” Yurachek said after introducing Pittman at what was, at times, an emotional ceremony in the indoor football facility.

Hiring a career offensive line coach puts somebody at the top that will know what the problem is with the Hogs inside and, maybe more importantly, what to do about it.

When he was here with Bret Bielema from 2013-15, Pittman was the chief architect of an offensive line that consistently made national headlines. They also opened up holes for folks and made Brandon Allen one of the top quarterbacks in the league, primarily by keeping people off his back.

It was interesting to note he didn’t mention Bielema by name a single time. They didn’t exactly remain fast friends when Pittman left in 2015, fed up with Bielema’s apparent lack of interest.

Pittman has been around some bad teams before. He was on John Blake’s staff the last two seasons he was at Oklahoma during a period of time Sooner fans would like to forget.

Blake couldn’t organize a one-car funeral and managed to tell so many different stories he actually started believing multiple versions of them himself.

But he’s also been around some winners, most recently at Georgia as the Bulldogs ripped off a 43-12 mark. That includes a 35-7 record over the last three seasons, a national title game appearance, an SEC title and three straight division titles.

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Don’t give me the stuff about him not having head coaching experience. Success elsewhere doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win at another place.

Especially these days. The trend has been hiring coaches with no previous head coaching experience. Three of the four coaches in this year’s College Football Playoff are in their first job at the top.

“Every head coach that is a head coach now wasn’t at some point,” he said Monday. “But at some point, someone’s got to trust you and believe in you.”

That was Yurachek, who has figured out that coaching the Hogs is a rather unique situation that doesn’t mean what works somewhere else will work here.

Pittman knows that. He was in the homes of recruits on Monday and will be going to visit Morrilton quarterback Jacolby Criswell in an attempt to keep him in Arkansas after he committed to North Carolina last fall.

Maybe the biggest indicator the current players are buying in is four-star cornerback Devin Bush taking his name out of the transfer portal. Pittman said it all starts with recruiting your current team and he can thank Morris later for keeping the redshirts on 17 freshmen.

It’s just more ammo for a coach that knows the state and has been a key part of a team winning division titles, league titles and playing for a national championship.

“With all my experience with different SEC schools and working with different people, it’s been a very great thing for me to learn from things I like and things I don’t,” Pittman said. “We’ll try to put them all together and be the best program that we can be.”

There were no slogans or catch phrases. Oh, he should trademark “Yesssirrr!” but there haven’t been any grandiose or rehearsed marketing slogans.

Just a plan to get back to playing tough and working hard … kinda the way other Razorback coaches that have been successful have done things.

Like someone said back in 1984, the Hogs are replacing nonsense with sense.