Andy & Ari On3 - Arkansas FIRES Sam Pittman | What's next for the Razorbacks?

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

Arkansas has fired Sam Pittman and announced Bobby Petrino as the interim head coach. Watch here as Andy & Ari provide an instant analysis of this breaking news out of Fayetteville. Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Subscribe to On3!  ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...Welcome to On3 | The best of college football and recruiting https://www.on3.com/ Listen to Andy & Ari On3 on podcast! Spotify 🎧: https://open.spotify.com/show/5AhQ4d2m5TQu5Q2vkwtxjt?si=d9016221aa2a4427 Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-staples-on3/id1695325427 Follow Andy Staples on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Andy_Staples Follow Andy Staples on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andy_staples Follow Ari Wasserman on Twitter: https://x.com/AriWasserman Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/on3sports Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/on3/ Like/Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/On3Sports/ Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Indian Ari on 3 presented by Ben MGM. You hear the sirens. You know what that means. There's who's. And then Arkansas has fired Sam Pittman. A move we figured was coming when we saw the empty seats at halftime in the third end game. If they might just try to save three million bucks on the buyout, hoping they lost the next three games, which would have allowed them to cut the buyout.

But Ari, they went ahead and did it today, which is probably. one of those ripped the Band-Aid off kind of things that that needed to happen. Yeah, I mean, it just, you cannot come out into a game like they did on Saturday while on the hot seat and feel the defense that doesn't look like it's practiced. I mean, it was like so bad. You began to, you know, feel bad for Arkansas's players and their team.

And I even think Sam Pittman, he's a nice guy, but there are certain expectations at every SEC program. And it's unfortunate that, He isn't the person. Now, I think the most fascinating thing about this, you know, after he was perpetually on the hot seat for three straight years, Andy, is that the very interesting, familiar face is taking over here, which is Bobby Petrino. The last guy who is successful as the head coach is the interim, is Bobby Petrino. And I think what is, you know, I saw some conspiracies about how this was going to play out that maybe Arkansas would keep Sam Pittman around one more week and then bring. bring Bobby Petrino in for a home game against A&M, which I believe is the last game he coached when he was the, you know, coach of Arkansas and, like, we'll give him a chance before throwing him the wools.

The O.C. at A&M and Fischer's last year. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know if this is going to be a slam dunk transition to the last guy who was successful there. Obviously, there's a lot of scar tissue with what happened there and how that ended. We knew for a fact that this was going to happen, though, and I think that Arkansas. I'm not at the scene of the motorcycle incident accident. accident, if you're wondering. I am on the side of the road because, spoiler,

we checked and they thought it was going to be quiet today. So I started driving to Orlando and then this happened. So I'm in lovely Mickenope, Florida. I am not where the motorcycle accident happened in northwestern that cost Bobby Petrino the Arkansas job the last time

he had it. But you brought up the point of Sam Pittman being perpetually on the hot seat. And it has been this way for three years. And it just, the problem is this job is incredibly hard right now. You're in an SEC that just added Texas and Oklahoma. Missouri's good. Ole Miss is good.

Tennessee's good. These are all programs that weren't really that good or weren't even in the SEC when Bobby Petrino was coaching there. So it's a different job now. Much different. We'll talk about other potential candidates because obviously, Rhett Lashley at SMU is from Springdale. he's a native son. It would be going home for him. We can have the argument later about whether you'd leave SMU for Arkansas at this point.

But you've also got G.J. Kinney at Texas State. Alice Goldish at USF. Colin Klein, the offense coordinator of Texas A&M. Ryan Silverfield in Memphis would be a very good candidate for this job. Yeah. Who may or may not be appearing on our show at some point this week. And maybe that was just good booking. I don't like to promise anything, but Ryan's a good dude.

and, you know, his name's going to pop up, Andy. What do you think needs to occur at Arkansas for Petrino to keep this job? Like, is he in a tryout period right now? Yeah, he's going to get some support. Now, remember the way it ended last time. He was fired for lying to his AD about who was on the motorcycle with him. It was not clean. It was ugly.

So it's not like he would get universal support. There will be people who were for him because he was successful there. There will people, there will be people who are. against him because of the way it ended. The way you get everybody on your side is you win some games that they're not supposed to win. So if Arkansas goes on a run here, then Bobby Petrino has a chance to get this job.

And the one thing that you have to say, their next three games are really tough. Yeah, very tough games. Bobby Petrino has been known to drop some ball plays, though, Andy. And Arkansas... He didn't draw money up against Notre Dame. Notre Dame's defense gave up 30 to Purdue, and he only scored 13 against him.

I'm trying to breathe some hope into the fan base, yes, he did not draw any of, I mean, they could have scored a little bit more if they were perpetually down and pushing and pressing, but like their offense is pretty good. Like their offense isn't the hopeless thing, it's their defense. But yeah, how

do you win? Their defense is terrible, yes. How do you win the support, like you said, Andy, by winning games against teams you're not supposed to. And I think if your offense can figure something out that at least gives you a drummer's chance of winning an exciting high-scoring game,

game. Obviously, that defense is, I wouldn't say bad. I would say it's hopeless at this point, but this had to happen. And there's no reason why Arkansas should be like unable to at least compete with some good teams. Like they didn't, you weren't even competitive on Saturday. That's the issue here. Because Arkansas has plenty of money. That's never going to be the problem. I mean, look at basketball that they've hired John Caliperi. They've funded him in a way that he can compete for national titles. You heard Hunter Eurocheck say if he's their ID. You heard him say a few weeks ago that that maybe they're not funding football in the way that that allows them to compete for the national title and that is the AD's way of saying give us more money

give us more money please so we'll see if that happens but they do have willing donors they have a lot of big corporate donors this is a place where if you start winning they get behind you in a big way the problem as we said before is when Arkansas has been successful in the SEC it's when some of the other programs around it geographically have been down and the programs around Arkansas geographically are very much up right now even even miss state they were undefeated yesterday and took tennis the overtime like so everybody in Arkansas is it's kind of a peer with that they would have to compete against for players for assistant coaches for everything they're they're good now like this is good Missouri's

good it's a tough spot yeah Ole Miss is a pretty tough spot now the thing that I'll say Andy about Walmart is the logos there maybe they can get some you know rollback pricing on some of these NIL athletes I don't know what what the deal

is I never really know and I have a hard time gauging which teams actually could be like sleeping NIL giants if they pooled a certain leather I think Arkansas would fall into the theoretically they could be pretty good at it yeah I also think too that there one of them yes nil goes hand in hand with program optimism and that was part of the problem too

with sam pitman i think it was probably harder to to draw money or to raise money to support the staff because people already have been out on him for i mean i'm sure some of the donors were out on him for three years i mean we were talking about how he was on the hot seat you know yeah like this is perpetual and it's kind of hard to drum up enthusiasm but what's the most amazing way to get enthusiasm bringing a coach whether that be bobby petrino or one of the other candidates that we just alluded to, you know, get some excitement, get some, you know, some, you know, some change going on. And all of a sudden, change turns into money and money turns into change. So, like, that's, that's the kind of the way that I would look at it. I think that at some point, somebody commented

here in the live chat, Andy, I know it's probably harder for you to see it right now, given your circumstances than me. But somebody said we should do a random ranking of the openings, and maybe we can add in some jobs that we think will be open and make an episode out of it. But I wonder just in general, how coveted you think this Arkansas job is? I know some of the names we talked about. Like, Ryan, like, Colin Klein could be in line for K-State if Chris Klyman does retire or something like that. So, like, this is one of the people that maybe besides jobs for Tulane,

he's one that's a consideration for this job. So, Lashley. would have been, you know, I think we might have lost Andy because he's on the side of a highway. So let me just finish this up here, River. You can come up and join me if you want just to give me some company. But like the thought process here is, you know, it's an SEC job. It's an SEC job that probably has some major support that would come around with some added enthusiasm. And I think that all Arkansas people want is to have a place that is competitive.

And I think that that's an attractive opportunity. Like we have seen Arkansas be successful and they're not so distant past. And as Andy alluded to before he, you know, disconnected, they have had, you know, a reason to believe. But I think that like it is kind of an attractive job to a certain extent because when you look at some of the other SEC jobs, they'll want to fire you after year one if you don't go 10 and two. And I don't know that that's the case of Arkansas. I think they want to be competitive. I think they want to have a reason to believe. and it's a strong and loyal and dedicated fan base.

It's a really, really good job for the right person. And I think some of those names that we, you know, talked about earlier were the right people. Yeah, look, Silverfield, Somerall, Lashley, those are all really good coaches. I think, Ari, has the ship sailed, has the sun set on the Gus Malzahn homecoming? I think it probably has. Yeah, I think that Gus Malzon's last few stops at, you know, as a head coach, where it ended at Auburn and how it went at UCF probably, you know, makes people believe that he's a better coordinator than he has a head coach at this

point, especially considering he's been at it for such a long time. I think that the wave of excitement from at least people in my perspective is just like the young, exciting first-time guy who might have something figured out that old timers haven't yet, you know, and I think that that's, you know, when you think about drumming up excitement to me, it's more about the unknown than the retread. So for me, like a Rhett Lashley type of person, a guy who's been in the playoff in this current era at a place that, you know, has resources but is in a typical place is exciting. You know, I think that there's a long conversation to be had about Arkansas, how it recruits the territories, whether or not not being lumped in in some certain geographical areas, the way that it used to be. Well, I guess now that Oklahoma and Texas are in the SEC, maybe they are in Texas a little bit more than they've been in the past.

like how do you go about it? What's the plan? That's all like a Monday or Tuesday discussion. But I think that Arkansas in general, it should be a pretty attractive place for somebody who's hungry to win because it gives you a seat at the table. And Andy, the one thing that we have to acknowledge more than anything is that having a seat at the table or having a job in one of those two conferences is inherently more valuable than it's ever been. Just being a coach in the Big Ten, just being a coach in the SEC. And Arkansas, you know, we have had discussions in the past about, well, is it just a place that, has unrealistic expectations and has to accept the fact that it's at the bottom of the food

chain. Maybe we were a little bit short-sighted on that. Maybe Arkansas should expect to compete for an SEC championship once every three or four years. And if they do that, I think they'll be happy. And I think that there's plenty of coaches out there, especially a few of the ones that we just named on that list. And maybe even Bobby Petrino. I don't know. That could probably accomplish that. So you have an SEC, like I think that the golden sweet spot, Andy, more than anything for new jobs is, can you exist in one of the two biggest conferences in college football, and do you have a high chance of keeping your job for a long period of time? Now, I don't know where Arkansas ranks in the second part.

Yeah, and the thing about it, Ari, Ari, the thing about it is Arkansas has a history of actually getting to the SEC championship game. I mean, Houston Nut took them there a few times. They've been more successful than other programs in the SEC now. Like, they've seen it in a not too distant past. So it does make sense why they would feel this way. And they have tons of money. So you hire the right guy.

Because I think Missouri, when they hired Eli Drinkwitz, we probably would have said the same things about them. And that was a program that Gary Pinkel had done really well with, had been to the SEC championship game in 2013. It was like, okay, but nobody's going to do that again. Nobody's going to really make them good again. Well, Eli Drinkwitz did make them good again. He's gotten good players.

He has a good roster. It's doable. And Arkansas fans got on me a few months ago, because we were talking about this job, and I said how hard it was and how I don't know, like, because it feels like once you win nine games at Arkansas, then you're on the clock, and then you start being perpetually on the hot seat after that, because it's like, okay, now what are you going to win 11? When are you going to win, you know, more than that? But, but they were right in that it is doable there.

If it's doable at Ole Miss and it's doable at Missouri, then it is doable at Arkansas. They're right about it. And also, you can also, you can say, Andy, like, if you can, do it at Vanderbilt, you can do it here, right? Like, how many teams are doing it at other places that are at typical? You can do it at South Carolina. You can do it here. Yeah, Vanderbilt hasn't done it yet. But yes, no, like, South Carolina and Arkansas are

good analogs. Came into the SEC at the same time, you know, probably equal amounts of success through the years in the SEC, and it is doable. So this is a good job. Certainly, if you want to get rich, it's a good job. The question is whether you get rich coaching there a long time or whether you get rich getting bought out it's one of the other but you're going to get rich and i bet a lot of coaches are you going to want this thing not the least of

which is the interim coach who was the last truly successful coach there are you this is this is going to be a juicy story to follow the rest of the season yeah can't wait to do it and uh thanks for being a team sport player here and you're setting up on a highway but let's let's catch up more about this this week I want to go find that motorcycle.