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Sam Pittman reflects on changing landscape after 3 seasons as head coach
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Sam Pittman’s first 3 years as head coach of Arkansas have been some of the most difficult years to navigate in college football.
With NIL and the transfer portal taking over, it’s a weird time to be a coach. On top of all that, Pittman had to navigate coaching during a pandemic.
The fourth-year head coach reflected on the changing landscape in his press conference Monday.
He said that one of the difficulties of the changing landscape has been making sure NIL and the portal didn’t divide the team.
“My biggest concern in that was a separation of the team,” he said. “NIL was a separation of the team. The portal, to be honest with you, was a separation of the team. COVID, not necessarily, but it did separate you from the team. Culture to me is a big thing. The two hottest topics of separating the team culture is NIL and certainly the portal.”
He’s also learned in his 3 seasons. One of the biggest lessons he’s learned is how to approach the transfer portal.
“I’ve changed, I’ve made mistakes,” Pittman said. “I’ve changed in the fact that, we tell kids we don’t want anybody to go in the portal. Before, we just never really addressed it until they came into my office. Now, if we’ve signed them, we don’t want them to leave. I think that’s helped our culture a little bit.”
