FAYETTEVILLE -- The competition level moves up several levels on Saturday when Arkansas opens SEC play against Ole Miss in Oxford.
The memory of last year's 63-31 beating handed to Arkansas by Ole Miss is still on the minds of Razorbacks who played in that game and the coaches. Sam Pittman confirmed that this week on Monday.
"Yeah, I think there’s always," Pittman said. "So you prepare your team. If your team … We have a good enough team. We do. If we play well, we can play with anybody on our schedule. I may be the only guy that believes that, but I believe it with all my… Well, no I’m not. I got 115 that believe that as well. But there’s got to be, each game has different motivational factors behind it. They all do. Last week was for the state. You know? It was a state championship, to some aspect of a state championship game. You find different things that have extra motivation.
"We should have enough things to motivate ourselves, so certainly, the way we got beat last year in that game, it has to have some motivation. The problem with that is, a bunch of our kids that are playing on our team weren’t here for it. Now, it should motivate the guys that were embarrassed, because it was an embarrassing night. Certainly, there are some things there that we’ll talk about after we certainly need a great week of practice to prepare ourselves, but that may be part of the motivation."
The motivation does it extend to the coaching staff?
"Yeah. It’s already been extended," Pittman said. "It was extended last night. So, um, we have to do a better job. A lot of their points last year came on big-play bombs, and it was bam, bam, bam, bam. Of course, Jaxson Dart was on point and they protected well, but a lot of them were explosive plays. Just boom, boom, boom. It’s hard to come back from that if they’re scoring so fast."
Both Arkansas and Ole Miss enter the game undefeated after two games.
"I’m very pleased with where we are after two games," Pittman said. "We certainly know that the competition level is going to rise big time going into a hostile environment over at Ole Miss. Since I’ve been the head coach, we haven’t won over there. We’ve played two really close games, but we haven’t been able to win. I have a lot of respect for their team and their players and their coach. So looking forward to starting SEC play and being on ESPN at 6 o’clock. We’re excited about it."
Ole Miss has three Razorbacks from last season on the team. They are offensive lineman Patrick Kutas, tight end Luke Hasz and cornerback Jaylon Braxton. Pittman downplayed that.
"Oh we don’t even talk about it, to be honest with you," Pittman said. "We’ve all made decisions in our lives. They’ve made one and hopefully it’s working out good for them. We’ve got so many transfers on our team that, you know, now they’re on our team and those guys that transferred are certainly on Ole Miss’ team. We really don’t talk about it to be honest with you."
Pittman was on the 2015 coaching staff that won an exciting game in Oxford that included the Hunter Henry heave to Alex Collins on a fourth-down play that was nothing short of a miracle. Brandon Allen eventually scored the winning points.
"Yeah, it certainly was unbelievable and I mean that in every sense of the word, the ending," Pittman said. "Not only did we have to get fourth and 25 but we had to, we went for two and the first one we got a face-mask penalty on Brandon on their defense. We got half the distance and then decided to run it in with him as well. They were a really, really good team. I think they had beaten Alabama that year. And so it was a big win and a lot of fun.
"One of those you get into the locker rom and you go, man, I don’t know how that happened but I’m glad it did. But Hunter did that on his own. We had not talked to him about if he catches it short or we didn’t know he was going to be the guy. He’s a smart player and he heaved it back there on his own and luckily Dan (Skipper) tipped it and we were able to pick it up and run it for a first down. Unbelievable play, very fortunate play for the Hogs. But yeah, it was a great win for Arkansas that day."
Ole Miss quarterback Austin Simmons has completed 33 of 55 passes for 576 yards, three touchdowns and four interceptions. He has also carried 15 times for 61 yards and a touchdown. However, he was injured against Kentucky and his status is still up in the air though he was listed probable on Wednesday night's availability report from the SEC.
"Ole Miss has a really good team, with a lot of speed, a lot of explosiveness both sides of the ball," Pittman said. "They do so much defensively. They’re simple but complicated, if that makes sense, with the line movements that they do. They’re not a heavy bring-two blitz team, but they are ‘one,’ and they come from corner, from safety, from ‘Mike’ backer, from ‘Willy.’ A lot of different movements there that we’ve got to be ready for. And they’ve got some big guys and talented guys doing the movement.
"Offensively we certainly have to be prepared for two different type of offenses, whether Simmons is healthy or whether he’s not. They proved when they brought in their second-team quarterback they can move the football in their — what I call the Wildcat — but their, which he can really throw the ball. He didn’t have to last week certainly, because of the situation in the game. When they do that it’s certainly different than it was last year because they had the big man running the majority of that last year. Real good offensive line. A lot of speed on the outside. Certainly well, well coached. So we have a lot of respect. We’re looking forward to going over there. Looking forward to it being a night game, a national TV game. We just have to have a really good week of practice, which we have had the first two weeks and we’ll continue to do that this week as well."
Does it make it harder to prepare for them not knowing who will be the quarterback?
"I think it always does add a little bit to it," Pittman said. "However, their offense is their offense. Both of them are very talented running the football as well as throwing it. So you’re still going to have to have contain and have somebody — if we elect to spy him or whatever it may be. You’re still going to have to have somebody responsible for him. So, yes, it would be more difficult if we didn’t know and they played the entire game with No. 6 instead of Simmons or whatever. But we’ll be prepared and we have to prepared for both type of offenses anyway, so we’re going to use a lot of that today getting ready for the Wildcat type situation that they run."
Arkansas will be in Oxford on Saturday for a 6 p.m. kickoff on ESPN.
