Sam Pittman recaps loss to BYU and looks ahead to LSU

It’s been a rough 48 hours for Arkansas football fans. Following the 38-31 loss to BYU, there have been plenty of opinions on how to fix things going forward. None of those have come from head coach Sam Pittman, until Monday.

Pittman spoke to the media Monday morning and discussed the loss to BYU offering *some* explanation. He also looked ahead to this week’s SEC opener against the LSU Tigers. Here’s a recap of what Pittman had to say.

Penalties

“I, obviously, didn’t agree with all the calls…several of them,” Pittman said. “Hence, the problem – we had too many missed assignments and penalties to beat a good football team.”

“You’re going to have some missed assignments in a game, but it’s the penalties that are killing drives and keeping drives alive that just have to get corrected. In a nutshell, I think if we take half of the penalties away, we would’ve won the game.”

Rocket Sanders

In response to a question about Rocket Sanders’ availability, Pittman wasn’t too sure. “I don’t know if he’s going to be able to play or not,” Pittman said. “In all honesty, it’s probably too early to tell on that injury. We’re going to have him out there today (Monday) and see where he’s at.

“To be honest, the answer is probably ‘no’ right now. Not ‘no’ that he’s not going to play, but ‘no’ that we just don’t know yet.”

Offensive Struggles

When asked about AJ Green’s performance, Pittman said he’d like to get Green more carries and talked about the offense’s struggles.

“Right now, everything we’re doing offensively seems hard,” Pittman said. “It’s hard. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything coming easy to us. We did have some good completions and long runs on Saturday than previous games.”

Offensive Line

“The offensive line just has to play more consistent,” Pittman said. “We probably need to move the pocket a little bit more. We just can’t stand back and let people blitz us or bull us.”

“I don’t know there’s a lot more than what we’re doing. Believe me, we’re trying everything that we can to get the best guys out there, that are going to play the best. Just have to play more consistent.”

KJ Jefferson

Pittman was asked about KJ Jefferson’s health, he alluded to the fact that Jefferson may not have been 100% on Saturday.

“Yes, he’s fine. He was a little banged up going into the game,” Pittman said. “We wanted to do the same thing (run Jefferson) but we knew the answer why. I’m sure that had to do with how he was feeling.”

History with LSU

“We’ve played them three times and there’s three points between the last three games,” said Pittman. “We’ve lost by three (2020), won by three (2021) and lost by three (2022). We’ll be ready to play. I know they will be too.

“Losing wasn’t a wake up call for us. We would’ve learned from it if we won, too. It is LSU and it is SEC play, so I’m sure they’ll be ready. But it is a special place to go at night and it’s a hard place to win, especially at night.”

“Last year when we got beat by Liberty, the next game was against LSU. We actually played really good. KJ wasn’t able to play…but we played a good game. We played a physical, good game. We can’t mull around because I think this is as good of a team as we’ll play all year.”

“We’ve got a good football team. We’ve lost a game, now we have to go get our pride back and get our respect back.”

Isaiah Sategna

Sategna returned a punt for a touchdown and has looked like someone with game-changing speed. Many – including this writer – have wondered why we haven’t seen more of him on offense, and Pittman attempted to explain why.

“He’s got to catch the ball more consistently in practice,” Pittman said. “You’ve also got guys in front of him not catching the ball 100%, but it’s all opportunities for him. I think we’re going to do a little something at wide receiver…where we might can get him on the field a little bit more.”

Defensive Line

“Going into the game, we felt like they had two really good tackles,” Pittman said. “We thought we could pick on their interior guys a little and it just didn’t quite work out. I think they did a good job of moving (Kedon Slovis). They did a lot of quick throws with him and stuff like that to get the ball out of his hands before our guys could get there.”

Overcoming Loss to BYU

“It’s hard. It’s not a job, it’s my life,” said Pittman. “The kids? Same way. I think it’s a time where it’s harder to overcome losses if you’re a social media person.”

“You want to please the people who are employing you, the team, your wife, the state, the media and you can’t always do that. That’s the hard part of our job and, I’d imagine, that’s the hard part of being a student-athlete. We all have feelings and when you let people down – you’re already beating yourself up, but when someone (online) is beating the hell out of you with it…it’s hard.”

“I think the staff and the kids go off – I’m the leader – so they look at how am I going to approach it…we still got nine games left and we’re undefeated in the SEC. So, we’ll see what happens.”

Watch the entirety of Pittman’s press conference from Monday below: