Sam Pittman reacts to Arkansas's wild Liberty Bowl win over Kansas in 3OT
Sam Pittman and the Arkansas Razorbacks looked like they were going to run away with the Liberty Bowl trophy over Kansas on Wednesday night in Memphis.
But the Jayhawks wouldn’t go away. Eventually, the score was tied and overtime was needed. In fact, 3 overtimes were needed before Arkansas ultimately won 55-53.
After the game, Pittman gave credit to the Jayhawks, but added that he’s very proud of his Hogs:
“You know, we did what we had to do at the end of the game,” Pittman said. “We should have put it away 30 minutes ago left in the game. … Give Kansas a lot of credit. They fought their tales off.
“I’ll say this, it ain’t about who we don’t have here. It’s about who we had. This football team said they wanted to play. I know they did. We did too. We’re Autozone Liberty Bowl champs, and I’m damn proud of our football team.”
He went on to say what he told his team ahead of Kansas’s final 2-point conversion attempt:
“I told him to go after him,” Pittman said. “I wanted to go after him. We weren’t being able to man them up. I waned to go put some pressure on them. We got lucky there at the end. We’re Liberty Bowl champs. I’m just excited as I could be.”
Arkansas finished the season with a 7-6 record, while Kansas fell to 6-7 for 2022.
Hogs played with almost 50% of a new core of players… played a very inspired KU team, and beat them by 15. Yes, they won by 15 until the j a c k w a d refs decided to extend the game.
KJ is an absolute beast. Proud of our team and especially our Coach. WPS!
I used to complain about SEC officiating but never again. PAC 12 officials are the worse!!
amen to that. I’ve never seen such one-sided officiating to keep one team in the game.
Well, the Pac12 15th ranked Oregon Ducks got an impressive one point win over UNC who has the worst defense in the ACC. This was a game the refs were mightily pulling for Kansas. It was an ugly uphill to hold on but AR did. A wins a win. Congrats AR on a day the SEC could have went 0-2.
On the landers “fumble” when there is clear evidence his arm hit the ground with ball control they wouldn’t overturn it. It is like they are wanting to believe it happened a certain way.
Why bother with replays if they still can’t be honest with it. I think refs too often get wrapped up into the excitement and intentionally or not base rulings on their “fan” instinct. Clearly that was not a fumble. But ever since the Auburn backward spike I have wondered how they can’t get it right even using the review process.
No excuses for…Kansas. They should have won this game easily. Read where Arkansas at game time was down to 55 scholarship players. Then lost two starters early in the first quarter. That’s playing the game with a DC and missing 32 scholarship players? Come on, Kansas should have run away with it. This was an upset win for the Hogs. I’ve not heard of one other team missing that many if the reports are accurate.
That’s “without” a DC. Gotta proof read better.