Sam Pittman addresses Dan Enos firing: 'It just wasn't working'

Sam Pittman opened up about the firing of offensive coordinator Dan Enos following Arkansas’ sixth loss of the season.

Pittman was respectful of the job done by Enos, but simply said it didn’t work out. Unfortunately for the Razorbacks, the postseason hopes are slim and a once powered offense isn’t firing off on all cylinders.

Pittman revealed what was next post-Enos.

“First thing I want to say is, Dan worked extremely hard, was in the building all the time, put a lot of hours into it and things of that nature, it just wasn’t working,” Pittman said. “And so yesterday morning, we decided to make a change there, well not a change, but go ahead and let Dan go … I had a meeting with the offensive staff and called a lot of recruits. We’re gonna have Kenny Guiton move to quarterbacks and he’ll call the plays.” 

Pittman made sure not to make any outside hires for quick fixes. He wanted to keep the transition easy.

“Obviously, it was important that we stayed in-house so we wouldn’t have a lot of terminology and then we gotta give our kids a chance to win. And it just seems that nothing ever came easy for us this year. And we’ve got to do some things differently. And one of them is cut down the volume that we have. So I’ve been meeting with those guys all morning on that and we’ll go from there.”

Sam Pittman honest about Dan Enos firing

Enos was in his first season of his second tenure with the Razorbacks as their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He had previously served in the role from 2015-2017 under Bret Bielema.

Arkansas lost its sixth straight game, a brutal 7-3 loss to Mississippi State over the weekend. The Razorbacks managed only 200 yards on offense the entire game.

“It’s disappointing because I’m the head coach at Arkansas, and this state deserves better, and that’s the biggest disappointment,” Pittman said. “Because we’ve got kids in there playing their hearts out; we just got to figure out a way to score some points.”

KJ Jefferson completed 19 of his 31 passes but only for 97 yards with one interceptions. He also had 38 yards on the ground on 16 carries.

Star running back Raheim “Rocket” Sanders did not play in the game. He injured his knee in the season opener and has missed five of the team’s eight games this year.

Arkansas gets a weekend off before returning to action at Florida on November 4.

Peter Warren contributed to this report