Sam Pittman speaks highly of Greg Brooks Jr., the Arkansas transfer who landed with his home-state Tigers at LSU. But the Arkansas coach is also emotional about the serious medical development for Brooks.

Pittman spoke on the SEC coaches media teleconference on Wednesday and candidly reacted to Brooks’ situation and impact on both teams, as the Razorbacks and Tigers meet this week.

“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.”

Pittman was asked if he would meet with Brooks this week, and he said he would respect Brian Kelly and his program and not overstep any boundaries.

“But if it’s at all possible that we can, if I thought it would help him, I certainly would do a lot of things. At this moment I don’t have plans to see him, but I’m not telling you that we haven’t talked about it and it’s not in the works as well,” Pittman said.

Pittman also recalled his favorite story from Brooks’ time at Arkansas, and it was the game the Razorbacks ended a long SEC losing streak when they beat Mississippi State.

“Greg picks a pass for the first touchdown of the game and takes it all the way back for 7,” Pittman said. “It kind of sprung us into that win and I’ll never forget that and the look on his face after that pick-6.”