By Otis Kirk

FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 10 Arkansas is 2-0 on the season, but penalties on Saturday was an issue.

The Razorbacks had 10 penalties for 122 yards compared to only five for 41 yards for the Gamecocks. Sam Pittman addressed the penalties on Monday when asked what he wants to clean up.

"I mean, we had 10 of them." Pittman said. "If you’re looking at the game Saturday, we had 10 penalties. That number should be anywhere from two to six. They’re going to call a couple holdings. I get it. But now 10. That’s on me. I evidently let that go at practice. I didn’t think I had, but evidently I have. I promise you it’s an emphasis, but it was last week, too. Because I think we had seven in the first game. That’s disappointing. I’m disappointed in myself on that one. We’ve got to get it cleaned up."

Pittman was particularly concerned with the hands-to-face penalities.

"Just rode up," Pittman said. "They just kept riding. On one, the South Carolina O-lineman had his … he was grabbing Landon Jackson’s facemask, so he had his facemask. We had dueling facemasks or whatever. But it would be one thing if you had one kid with three of them or one with two, but there was three different guys. Obviously we’re not getting close enough to (the offensive linemen). They were all what I call long arms. They were all long arms. Basically you’ve got your arm in there and you can’t get two in there and it rides. Well, you can ride for a second. You can get up in there and take it off and you won’t get called. Just keep holding on. A lot of it is they were doing the same thing, not necessarily in the face. I’m not trying to get a fine for officiating. I’m good with that. But we’ve got to get our hands out of there once it happens. We went back and looked at tape because I go, ‘Go back and look. I cannot remember.’ We weren’t doing that. We’re certainly emphasizing that."

TE Back?

Senior tight end Trey Knox injured his ankle against South Carolina after catching two touchdown passes in the season opener. How is he now?

"We’ve got to watch him," Pittman said. "I think he’ll be fine this weekend. I think we really have to watch him. How we do it, if there’s potential for him to practice that day, in other words if Dave (Polanski) hasn’t said he’s out, we take them into indy (individual drills) and we let the coaches kind of see where they’re at physically. That is also encouraging them to practice. They’re already suited out there, they’re already suited out, they’re in indy. But it’s also a good way to find out where they really are injury-wise. So we’re going to do that with him today."

Top 10

Arkansas is now No. 10 in the AP Poll. Pittman talked about that on Monday.

"Well, I think it’s a big deal," Pittman said. "I do. Everybody always looks at the negative all the time. I Tweeted out that we were No. 10 and then I got some responses, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’ Well, I ain’t Tweeting it out to you guys or a 50-year-old man. I’m trying to use it as recruiting, you know. So I really don’t care what the guy says, you know what I mean? I’m trying to recruit. Not him or them. I recruit. So we’re proud of it. Sure we’re proud of it. That doesn’t mean that that’s where we want to stay. 

"It’s hard to be in the top 10. We’ve been in the top 10 two years in a row. The kids have done it. The coaches, assistant coaches have done it. Yeah, I’m proud of it. I sure am. Whenever it came out I was smiling ear to ear. What that means right now is we’re No. 10 today and I Tweeted it out. I’m proud of it."

Arkansas (2-0) host Missouri State (2-0) at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 on ESPN+/SECN+.