Sam Pittman snubbed in Top 25 head coaches list?

Now that spring football has concluded, media outlets are dropping their “top 25” articles about every possible area of college football one can think of. Jesse Simonton of ON3 Sports wrote one such article listing the top 25 head coaches in the country.

Top 10 College Football Head Coaches per @JesseReSimonton👀https://t.co/pZ0Dr1wEvS pic.twitter.com/tliUS6wVsG

— On3 (@On3sports) April 24, 2023

Sam Pittman, understandably, was nowhere in it. After a disappointing season, it’s hard to argue Pittman should be included, but then I took a closer look at the list.

Simonton’s list contains five coaches Sam Pittman has personally beaten in the last 15 months. Luke Fickell (Wisconsin, previously Cincinnati) and James Franklin (Penn State) round out the top ten at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively. Arkansas beat Cincinnati in the 2022 season opener 31-24 and Penn State in the Outback Bowl 24-10.

Coming in at No. 15 is Lance Leipold of Kansas. Arkansas beat the Jayhawks in the Liberty Bowl 55-53. Leipold has done tremendous things for his football program, but so has Pittman. Between 2017 and 2019 Arkansas was the laughingstock of the SEC. It won a total of one SEC game in 3 years. Mocking fans dubbed Arkansas “the Vandy of the West”. In Pittman’s first season, he tripled the amount of SEC wins with a 10-game SEC schedule while also dealing with Covid. Are we just going to forget that because of one disappointing season?

The list includes two rival SEC coaches Pittman has beaten, No. 19 Shane Beamer (South Carolina) and No. 20 Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss). Arkansas manhandled both teams in 2022, beating South Carolina 44-30 and Ole Miss 42-27. I have no qualms about Kiffin being on the list. He took Ole Miss to the Sugar Bowl in 2021 but imploded at the end of the season in 2022. But why Shane Beamer? He didn’t bring a program back from the worst stint in its history. South Carolina has a much easier schedule, and they still ended the season only one game ahead of Arkansas. I just don’t see how you put him ahead of Sam Pittman at this point.

It’s a stretch to argue that Sam Pittman deserves to be on any Top 25 after finishing 6-6 in the regular season. Arkansas also experienced a mass departure of players and staff, and the program went from one of the best examples of culture to one of the worst. If he repeats his mistakes, he could even end up on the hot seat.

However, you cannot ignore that Pittman’s beaten a fifth of the coaches on this list. If Sam Pittman can beat these coaches head-to-head, why do they deserve a spot on the list more than him?