Sam Pittman speaks after awful loss to Notre Dame: ‘I’m mad at me’
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Sam Pittman isn’t oblivious to the pain that Arkansas fans were feeling during and after Saturday’s blowout loss to Notre Dame.
The Razorbacks were humiliated on their home field in Fayetteville, giving up 42 points in the first half alone and 56 by the end of a long afternoon in a 56-13 loss that sent the Hogs to 2-3. It was Arkansas’s 3rd straight loss after a 2-0 start, and even worse it was on ABC, so a national TV audience watched Notre Dame’s offense do just about anything it wanted to against Pittman’s woeful defense.
After the game, Pittman stood up and took his medicine during his postgame press conference, and when he was asked about the frustrations that the fanbase was feeling toward him, Pittman pointed the finger at himself.
“I understand. I get it. If I was a fan, I’d be mad at me, too,” Sam Pittman said. “I’d be frustrated as hell with me. But here’s what I’ll say, as long as I’m the head coach at Arkansas, I’m going to fight my butt off.”
Pittman’s team gave up an astounding 641 total yards and 32 first downs to the Fighting Irish on Saturday. Notre Dame rumbled for 210 yards on the ground and had 431 yards through the air. There was no resistance from Arkansas’s defense, but right now Pittman is facing plenty of resistance from an angry fan base that has had it with him.
“Hell, I’m mad at me, to be perfectly honest,” Pittman said.
Now, comes a bye week for Arkansas, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, considering that Saturday’s loss could linger even more than if the Razorbacks had another game in Week 6. Instead, they’ll have to wait 2 weeks until Week 7, when the road only gets harder with a trip to Knoxville for a matchup with No. 15 Tennessee.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
