Bill Haisten: College football’s odd couple bring the Razorbacks to Stillwater
- Jul 30, 2024 Updated Aug 6, 2024
Interesting figures on the current “first coach fired” list are five from the Big 12: Baylor’s Dave Aranda (at 7/1), BYU’s Kalani Sitake (10/1), Cincinnati’s Scott Satterfield and West Virginia’s Neal Brown (each at 14/1), and Colorado’s Deion Sanders (50/1).
Southern Cal’s Lincoln Riley and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney are at 25/1. OU’s Brent Venables is at 33/1.
It’s unfortunate for Razorback fans that their head coach — Sam Pittman — is high on the “first coach fired” list. At 5/1, he trails only Florida’s Billy Napier (4/1).
The combination of Pittman’s hot-seat status and the looming presence of his new offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino double the drama of the first Arkansas-Oklahoma State football game in 44 years.
If there were a “next Arkansas coach” prop bet, might Petrino top that list?
While it seems awkward that a former Razorback head coach now would work for the current Razorback head coach, Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek insisted during a Hogs+ interview that Petrino was not hired “to take Sam’s job.”
“(Petrino is) here to help change the dynamics of our offense,” Yurachek stated. “Who better to do that than one of the brightest offensive minds in college football?”
Petrino is back at Arkansas after having been the Hog head man in 2008-11 and fired in 2012 — after a conduct misstep involving a 25-year-old female staff member and a tipped-over motorcycle.
The Sept. 7 clash of the Razorbacks and Cowboys already is a Boone Pickens Stadium sellout, with an 11 a.m. kickoff on ABC television.
These programs are separated by only 180 miles, and yet they meet for the first time since 1980 and for the first time in Stillwater since 1978.
As the 62-year-old Pittman fights for his job and the 63-year-old Petrino attempts to become reestablished as viable for a big-school, big-money head-coaching situation, Arkansas should bring a high level of motivation to the OSU campus.
We’ll learn more about these guys as we get closer to game week, but there are two very interesting new Razorbacks: Taylen Green, a quarterback who last season made 12 starts at Boise State; and first-year freshman Braylen Russell, a four-star, 253-pound running back from Benton. That’s not a typo: Russell is a 253-pound running back.
Former Bixby star Luke Hasz now is an Arkansas sophomore and the projected starter at tight end.
The 2021 Razorbacks were 9-4. There were victories over Texas, Texas A&M and LSU, along with an Outback Bowl conquest of Penn State. Pittman’s approval rating was extremely healthy.
In their last 22 games, however, the Razorbacks are 8-14.
In April, Arkansas made a statement by hiring basketball coach John Calipari away from Kentucky. If the Arkansas people are tired of inconsistent basketball, you have to believe they’re sick of underachievement in football.
For Pittman, every game is an exercise in pressure management.
OSU starts its Big 12 schedule with a challenging bang — with a Sept. 21 hosting of preseason favorite Utah and a Sept. 28 test at Kansas State.
Before those games, OSU will want the momentum of having run the table in nonconference dates with defending FCS champion South Dakota State, Arkansas and the University of Tulsa.
Mike Gundy, by the way, is 5-4 against Southeastern Conference competition. OSU’s 2009 season-opening victory over Georgia was the only one of those Cowboys vs. SEC games played at Boone Pickens Stadium.
Having Razorbacks and Razorback fans in Stillwater is a fun, significant event, and that’s why the Arkansas game is the only one of OSU’s six home games that already is sold out.
The others eventually will be sellouts, but Sept. 7 has been an airtight sellout for two weeks and it’s the opener of a long-overdue, four-game OSU-Arkansas series.
Cowboy teams visit Fayetteville in 2027 and 2033, while Arkansas returns to Boone Pickens Stadium in 2032. For each game on the contract, the visiting school gets 3,000 tickets.
There is heavy speculation that if Arkansas doesn’t have at least an eight-win type of 2024 season, Pittman won’t be coaching the 2027 Razorbacks.
Arkansas has enough money to have attracted a rising-star type of coordinator who doesn’t have a tarnished history, and yet the university chose to bring Petrino back to Fayetteville. His path since 2012: he was the Western Kentucky head coach in 2013 and the Louisville head coach in 2014-18. In 2022, Petrino was the head man for Missouri State’s FCS program. The 2021 Bears lost only 23-16 at Oklahoma State, and that Cowboy team went on to finish with 12 wins.
Last season, Petrino coordinated Jimbo Fisher’s final Texas A&M offense.
When Petrino wasn’t retained by new Aggie coach Mike Elko, he again was a free agent and wound up with an improbable return to Fayetteville.
Petrino’s 2010 and 2011 Razorback squads were 21-5 overall and each was 6-2 in the SEC. Each team averaged 37 points per game.
In 12 seasons since Petrino’s firing — with John L. Smith, Bret Bielema, Chad Morris and Pittman as the head coaches — there hasn’t been a 10-win Arkansas season overall or a six-win record in conference play.
Picked to finish 14th in the 16-team SEC, Arkansas is starved for signature victories. Success in Stillwater would be a signature Saturday for Pittman and Petrino — college football’s odd couple.
