Sam Pittman admits to intentionally confusing media with travel during assistant coach hiring

This offseason, Sam Pittman had to hire a new defensive coordinator for Arkansas. That’s no small hiring for the assistant staff and there were plenty of rumors about who it could be. There were even reports that Arkansas was going to hire Chris Hampton from Tulane before eventually hiring Travis Williams from UCF.

As Sam Pittman explained during Williams’ introductory press conference, there was confusion in this search by its design. This was to avoid being tracked using flight trackers.

“Basically, I flew from Baltimore,” Sam Pittman paused. “Well, here they are. Can I say, or no? I flew from Baltimore, who y’all thought–not y’all but somebody’s tracking the plane. I was going to hire the guy from Maryland, which bless his heart, he had to deal with that. I flew from there to Tampa because I knew y’all was flying the plane, or tracking the plane. UCF is in Orlando. So, I flew to Tampa. He met me over there. We visited.”

New defensive coordinator Travis Williams wasn’t the only coach who Sam Pittman was trying to be sneaky about, though. He also wanted to hide the hire of tight ends coach Morgan Turner.

“And, then, in the meantime, he [Turner] was down recruiting for Stanford in Miami. So, we flew from Tampa to pick him up in Miami and we had done the contract and all this kind of stuff during the day picked him [Williams] up, and brought him back,” Sam Pittman smiled.

“So, yeah, it was kind of fun, to be honest.”

Sam Pittman never explained why he didn’t want to be tracked as he made his coaching hires. However, it is an interesting peak behind the curtain and the process for making hires during this chaotic time of year for college coaches.

Sam Pittman on Jalon Daniels

Between needing to make coaching hires, the transfer portal, and National Signing Day, it can be easy for a coach to forget that they have a bowl game to prepare for. For Sam Pittman, though, he knows that the Razorbacks have a big challenge containing Jalon Daniels, the Kansas quarterback, in the Liberty Bowl.

“Scary…Early in the year, he was running the ball a lot. I would assume they’re going to go back to that. Because he [is going to be] healthier than he’s been in a long time,” Sam Pittman said.

“He’s a really good runner and an exceptional thrower. To me, he’s what drives Kansas. And we certainly are aware of him and all of the great things that he does.”