After LSU safety Greg Brooks Jr. had to undergo surgery to remove a brain tumor, the LSU community rallied around him.

But Brooks also received loved from Arkansas, where he spent the first 3 years of his college career.

His former head coach Sam Pittman had high praise for Brooks during the SEC coaches teleconference Wednesday, complimenting his character and offering his prayers. While Brooks left Arkansas for LSU, that did not change the way Pittman thought of him.

“Caring, loving, smiles all the time, competitive, great teammate, great person, family,” Pittman said. “That was easy, by the way, because that’s who he is, was able to talk to mawmaw on Monday I guess it was and we’re just continuing to pray for him. But in a nutshell, and I mean this with all my heart, he’s a wonderful, wonderful kid and that didn’t change when he decided to go back to his home state of Louisiana. And we have prayed and will continue to pray for his health.

Arkansas will take on LSU this Saturday, and while Pittman expects his team to come out and compete like always, he believes both teams will be playing in honor of Brooks as he begins his road to recovery.

“It’s amazing, you have to continue to play hard, you have to play in honor just like I think LSU did last week in honor of Greg, and I think there’s a big part of that on our team,” Pittman said. “We’re very competitive, we want to win, we want to do all that. But tragedies put in our life, we have to honor those guys and that’s what we’re going to do, but he was a wonderful teammate here and I could not think of one negative thing to say about him or his family. So it’s tough, our kids know it as well. All we can is represent him in a way that we play.”

The Razorbacks and Tigers kickoff at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday.