FAYETTEVILLE -- The brutal four-game stretch of road games against SEC opponents is now behind Sam Pittman's Razorbacks.
Arkansas lost to LSU 34-31, Texas A&M 34-22, Ole Miss 27-20 and Alabama 24-21 in consecutive weeks. They will bring a 2-5 record back to Razorback Stadium to face Mississippi State (3-3, 0-3). The Hogs lost to BYU 38-31 before starting the road journey. Pittman talked about the team following that tough stretch of games.
"Well, you can play away from home," Pittman said. "It all depends a little bit about who you're playing. I think on the road we played some really good teams. Obviously, nationally ranked teams and things of that nature. We caught some breaks because we didn't play every one of them at night. What did we play two of them at night? At night at LSU. Was Ole Miss at night as well? The difficult part about playing on the road is obviously the noise, which is our advantage on Saturday morning. When you're trying to develop kids that haven't played much ball, especially offensively where you're trying to build some confidence in guys who haven't played. Then you go into a venue like that where really all you're thinking about is can you hear the snap count. You're trying to grow from that and those things.
"Probably if we had a veteran offensive line, it might have been a better stretch for us. Obviously, we didn't win any of the games, so that would be the biggest disappointment. However, I do think we're getting a little bit better, and we have four of the next five at home. We still have some of our goals left that we had at the beginning of the year. But that's a hard stretch, and I wish we could have made a dent in the win column on that. But I do think our team is better than we were when we last played at home."
The Hogs can only lose one more game and remain bowl eligible. They are looking to snap the five-game skid on Saturday. Is there a difference in the mood of the team being back at home finally?
"I haven’t been in there yet, but I’m sure," Pittman said. "I will feel the excitement from the guys at our team meeting today. Man, because they love the fans. Everybody does. So I think, and from what I understand we’re almost full. Which is really something to be said about the state of Arkansas, especially where we’re sitting right now. But they come out, support the kids and that’s what it’s all about. We got to give them a reason as well. We need to come out and play well but we’re really appreciative of that."
After played ranked teams on the road what is the mindset for playing a Mississippi State team that also hasn't won an SEC game?
"We’ve got to win," Pittman said. "We have to win. Have to win Saturday. To reach — again when the season starts you have all these goals and there are still some that we have. Now, they may have been down here to get up here, but there are still some attainable goals that we have. And our kids know. I’m going to talk to them today about it. But this game Saturday is a big, big game for us. They all are, but you keep backing yourself up into a corner, at some point you have to go forward.
"We’ve proven that we’ve got a pretty good football team. We haven’t proven we can win. So, we’ve got to do that Saturday. I think our kids understand that. There are some things in that locker room, you know, the kids that have been here for four years have started that we don’t want to let go of. There’s a lot of motivation and things. One of them is being back home. We want to show the state of Arkansas that we have a good football team, one good enough to win. So, there’s a lot of motivation there."
Arkansas was without Raheim "Rocket" Sanders on Saturday and won't have him this week and maybe beyond. Pittman was asked if he's out for the season?
"I don't know," Pittman said. "I really don't. He's not going to play Saturday. I really don't know. It just depends on how he feels and the progression of his rehab."
Arkansas and Mississippi State will kickoff at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning and televised on ESPN.
Photos Courtesy of Craven Whitlow CW3 Sports Action
