Sam Pittman assesses how concerned he is about Arkansas’ issues in pass protection

Over the weekend, Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman watched his Razorbacks lose a thriller against BYU. A big factor in that game turned out to be issues that Arkansas had while in pass protection.

After the game, Pittman was asked if BYU did anything to surprise them schematically. However, that wasn’t the case.

“No, there weren’t any blitzes that we weren’t ready for,” Sam Pittman said. “It wasn’t a blitz fest. I mean, they pounded gaps when we tried to run the football.”

Pittman admitted that the game simply came down to BYU’s pass rush beating Arkansas’ offensive line. By the end of the game, BYU had four sacks.

“They whipped us. I mean, that’s what happened out on the edge and we started chipping them and all those types of things, and going into the game we really didn’t feel like we would need to chip out there. Thinking we could get the back out on the route, but they proved that they were longer, stronger than what we anticipated on watching film-wise, and they got after us.”

Arkansas is currently 79th in the country in terms of sacks allowed. Through three games, the Razorbacks are giving up 2.33 sacks per game.

Now, the question is whether or not this problem can get fixed midseason.

“I think the kids from BYU are pretty good. I think they’re pretty good football players. We’ve got some hands issues and things of that — I’m not talking about placement of hands. I’m talking about three of our five linemen are casting up pretty good. So, we’ve got some hand issues that we’ve got to fix because it’s hard to grab. I know everybody will say you grab because you have holdings, but you understand what I’m saying. It’s hard to get a feel in there.”

Sam Pittman is an offensive line coach by trade. So, this is a unit he should have a good feel of throughout the season. For now, he’s not too worried about the group.

“I’m not overly panicked. We’re gonna have to chip. We’re gonna have to some help. We’ll have some tight ends out, especially when we continue to go into teams like BYU and continue to go into the SEC.”

Next week, Arkansas travels to LSU to open up SEC play.

Sam Pittman on his respect for Kalani Sitake

Ahead of the BYU game, Sam Pittman shared his thoughts on BYU head coach Kalani Sitake.

“Well, we have mutual friends which started it. And then I knew Kingsley, their left tackle, knew his parents. They rave about Kalani. So I already knew some people that told me several wonderful things about him. And then, I just like the way his team plays. But if you talk in the coaching circle, he’s one of the most well-respected guys in the country,” Pittman said.

“You go and play them; their team plays extremely hard, they’re well coached, very disciplined. I just have a lot of respect for him as a family man, how he runs his business, and he was very kind to me when we went out there last year. When you lose, obviously, we were fortunate we won; it’s hard to say some things after the game. It’s hard, but he was very respectful of the team and myself and all those things, even after the win.”

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