Sam Pittman admits transfer portal players are costing 'a lot more' than Arkansas expected

In recent seasons, college coaches have needed to deal with several massive changes in college sports, including revenue sharing and NIL for players who are transferring. It’s still a rapidly changing landscape and that seemed to catch the Arkansas Razorbacks and head coach Sam Pittman off guard.

As Pittman explained amid the first of two offseason Transfer Portal windows, the cost of players is more than Arkansas expected this offseason, which has forced the Razorbacks to make some strategic decisions when it comes to roster building.

“Yes [the cost of players is more],” Sam Pittman said. “A lot more. So, at some point, we had to decide are we gonna pay a whole lot of people or are we gonna pay a fewer number of people more money. And that’s kind of where we went in that.”

To this point in the transfer cycle, the Arkansas Razorbacks are 63rd in the 2025 On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings. That Arkansas transfer class has seen 26 players leave the Razorbacks while another 11 have joined the team. That includes eight players who are coming in from Power Four conference schools and another three who are coming from SEC schools.

For his part, Sam Pittman believes the challenges that have presented themselves to Arkansas are multi-faceted. One of the biggest is the term “revenue sharing,” which he believes drove up the price of players in the first place.

“But to answer the question, I think when the term ‘revenue sharing’ came out, I think that drove the price of doing business up four or five times what it may have been even last year,” Pittman concluded.

Beyond just adding players through the Transfer Portal, coaches also need to use their financial resources to try and retain players from their roster. At a place like Arkansas, where coaches expected a different price for players, that increased cost can again be difficult to navigate.

Sam Pittman addresses in-conference tampering in college football

Another major issue facing coaches in regards to how they build their rosters is tampering, which Sam Pittman recently addressed, focusing his thoughts on tampering within conferences.

“It’s a crazy world out there as far as tampering and all that. I don’t know if many guys have gotten in trouble for that and I don’t see it happening. It’s hard. The bottom line is, guys, is everyone of these kids that come in here – not everyone, … but most of them – they know where they’re going and how much they’re going to get paid. So somebody had to talk to them, you know. That’s very, very difficult,” Pittman said.

“But I think with the lay of the land right now, it’s agents doing the conversations and there’s no certification, you don’t have to be a certified agent or anything like that. An agent can be anybody. I think some certification there might help us as well.”