KJ Jefferson reveals how Sam Pittman changed Arkansas football
Sam Pittman and K.J. Jefferson are at the forefront of the return of Arkansas football to prominence.
The coach and quarterback have combined to bring hope to Razorbacks faithful after years of disappointment, and Jefferson revealed on The Paul Finebaum Show how Pittman was able to get the ball rolling.
“Just making sure that we’re all together,” Jefferson responded, when asked what Pittman has meant to Arkansas. “The locker room being divided under no circumstances. Just making sure that we’re together. We trust in him, we trust in the whole coaching staff that he put together. Just being loyal. Just being loyal when you get a new coaching staff that comes in. Once you gain their trust, you just have to be loyal. Willing to do anything for that coaching staff.
“My teammates, we all just — we love the way Coach Pittman came in, bought into the system that he put together around us, and the culture that he brought back with the hard working mentality. So we all just bought in, and trust the process.”
As you can see, Sam Pittman and K.J. Jefferson are laying the foundation for years of success at Arkansas. The Razorbacks have arrived, and the future is bright for the program.
KJ Jefferson assesses Arkansas offense after first fall scrimmage
Continuing, KJ Jefferson and the Arkansas offense have plenty of work to do to keep pace with their Top-50 offense from last season. Treylon Burks may be off to the NFL, but Jefferson’s receiving corp is catching up and the Razorbacks were able to retain Kendal Briles this offseason.
With their first scrimmage behind them, Jefferson liked what he saw from his offense at this point of the fall.
“We had a pretty good performance starting out,” Jefferson said. “I gotta give credit to my O-line and the receivers for making plays for helping me out on that standpoint. I feel like I did have a great day today. There are some things I do need to get better at with small details and stuff like that.”
The Arkansas offense scored 30.9 points per game in 2021 on their way to a 9-4 record. They averaged 443.3 yards of offense with less than a turnover a game for the season. Jefferson was a key part of that with 3,340 total yards and 27 total touchdowns during his breakout year.
While he liked how ‘explosive’ they were, Jefferson sees improvements they can still make. After all, fall camp is just entering its second week. First and foremost, Jefferson thinks they need to clean up the penalties to avoid afflicting themselves.
“As an offensive unit, I feel like we had a pretty explosive play today. We came out with two shots early but we just gotta clean up the little mistakes and the little details with the penalties that we had so we just can’t hurt ourselves,” said Jefferson. “We’re moving forward; we’ll focus on cleaning up the mistakes and keep being explosive.”