Which SEC coach has the most pivotal Saturday in Week 3? Give me Sam Pittman
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Maybe it’s an unpopular thing to say in what looks like a loaded Saturday slate. After all, we’ve got 3 matchups involving ranked teams, 2 of which are in the SEC.
That includes a monumental showdown with No. 6 Georgia at No. 15 Tennessee, where Josh Heupel is trying to beat UGA for the first time to end the Vols’ 8-year losing streak in the rivalry. That slate also includes Mike Elko returning to No. 8 Notre Dame, where he’d love to give No. 16 Texas A&M it’s first road win vs. an AP Top 25 team since 2014. And hey, just in case you forgot, Billy Napier has the tall task of beating No. 3 LSU in Death Valley in hopes that everyone will forget that he lost to USF last weekend.
It’s a pivotal weekend in the SEC. But dare I say, Sam Pittman has the most pivotal Saturday among SEC coaches.
That’s right. Arkansas is traveling to face No. 17 Ole Miss, which has been a sneaky-good SEC rivalry during the Pittman-Lane Kiffin era of the 2020s. In Part VI, Pittman’s squad is a touchdown underdog against an up-and-down Ole Miss squad (via BetMGM). With a loss, Pittman is staring at an all-too-familiar gauntlet in Games 4-7 (at Memphis, vs. No. 8 Notre Dame, at No. 15 Tennessee, vs. No. 16 Texas A&M). It’s a stretch that could very well determine his future in Fayetteville.
Timing (and context) are everything, though.
Saturday is the type of win that Pittman and Arkansas as a whole, have struggled to get. During his 5-plus seasons in Fayetteville, Pittman is 1-12 vs. AP Top 25 teams in true road games. What was the lone win, you ask? It was back in 2020 when Pittman knocked off No. 16 Mississippi State in front of a COVID-limited smattering of cowbells in Starkville. That was the first and only game that the Bulldogs played as a ranked team that season.
To recap, Pittman has never won a true road game against an AP Top 25 team that had a normal, non-COVID crowd. The last time Arkansas earned such a victory was in 2016 when Bret Bielema’s squad knocked off No. 15 TCU in Fort Worth (that TCU team then went on to have a losing season). The last time that Arkansas beat a ranked SEC team in a true road game was all the way back in 2015 when Arkansas upset No. 9 LSU in Death Valley.
It’s challenging to change national perception in this sport
You know what turns heads? Beating ranked teams on the road. The best coaches do it. Not surprisingly, Nick Saban (14), Kirby Smart (7), Steve Sarkisian (7) and the late Mike Leach (7) have the most such wins in the Playoff era.
The angst that Arkansas fans feel with Pittman is related to his ceiling. It’s not that Razorback fans demand that Pittman reach Atlanta every year. It’s that they feel there are too many games that their team doesn’t have a shot to win before they step on the field. A big part of that is the 1-12 record vs. ranked teams on the road. Two of those losses were down-to-the-wire games at Ole Miss, where Kiffin’s squad scored go-ahead touchdowns in the 4th quarter to outlast Pittman and Co.
Those 2 wins were part of a remarkable 4-year stretch of home dominance for Ole Miss. Since the start of 2021, Kiffin is 26-3 in games at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. That includes victories against a Heisman Trophy winner (2023 Jayden Daniels) and an SEC champ (2024 Georgia). Those games have been head-turning in their own right.
Giving Ole Miss loss No. 4 in that stretch would be as head-turning of a win as Pittman has had. Yes, that includes both the 2021 Texas win and the 2024 Tennessee win, both of which were at home vs. top-15 foes.
To win on the road after a blistering start from Taylen Green and this offense would do a couple of things. For starters, it would show the college football world that Green is more than just a fun quarterback and that he can take down quality competition. A year removed from him recording 0 touchdowns (passing or rushing) against the teams who finished in the AP Top 25, that’s still a question mark (don’t forget that Green got hurt vs. Tennessee and Malachi Singleton led those late scoring drives). Green outplaying the talented, but still developing Austin Simmons would send an “include me in your early Heisman Trophy conversations” in a way that very few Arkansas players have in the Playoff era.
What else would a 3-0 start do if it included a win at Ole Miss?
There’s a decent chance that come Monday, Arkansas is in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2022. While this week has shown us the flaws in the AP Top 25 voting process, that type of feat still matters. If a low ceiling is the knock on Pittman, seeing a number next to “Arkansas” means something.
That’s the standard in the SEC, perhaps now more than ever. On Monday, the conference set an AP Poll record with 11 teams in the top 25. Including Florida, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt, a whopping 14 SEC teams received at least 1 AP vote. Arkansas, as has often been the case in recent memory, was 1 of just 2 SEC teams who didn’t receive an AP vote. When you’re the program who hasn’t beaten a ranked team on the road in a non-COVID season since 2016 and you’re riding the longest drought among SEC teams without a game as an AP Top 25 team, let’s just say beating an FCS school and Arkansas State doesn’t turn heads.
On Saturday, Pittman has an opportunity to do just that. He can show the outside world that he’s not a dead man walking, and that he’s got a team that can turn heads deep into the conference slate.
An upset victory in Week 3 won’t guarantee that Arkansas will accomplish that goal or even that Pittman will survive this season, but it’s a pivotal first step. He knows he’s been on everyone’s hot seat for the better part of 2 years. To his credit, he’s earned another opportunity to move that discussion to the back burner.
He can have the college football world embracing the Hogs with a statement win in Oxford.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
