Sam Pittman expects Arkansas' win over Tennessee to unite fanbase after questions entering season

Arkansas got one of its biggest wins while under Sam Pittman this past weekend against No. 4 Tennessee. However, while it obviously means a lot for him and his players, he hopes it’ll represent more to the Razorbacks’ fanbase.

Pittman spoke about the impact of the five-point victory over the Volunteers in Fayetteville during his postgame press conference. He wasn’t for certain about how much it would do in the end at least in their locker room since the ‘Hogs already believed that they were capable of that.

“I’m not for sure,” said Pittman. “I’m not for sure what this win will do.”

“It’ll do a bunch but that locker room in there believes that we’re pretty good,” Pittman added. “They work hard. They’re together.”

If anything, Pittman wants most of the effect to be had on their fans across the state. There were plenty of problems coming in with him at 23-25 overall as their head coach, including a finish at 4-8 last fall. Still, now that they’re at 4-2 overall with their first top-five win in over a decade and a half, Arkansas has proven much of that wrong at the halfway point of their season.

“I think it’s going to do more for the state, you know, who was veering over here. ‘Hey, they’re going to fire the coach’, ‘They’re going to do this, they’re going to do that’, ‘When the hell are we getting this guy out of here?’ – all that stuff. I think maybe it’ll unite the state a little bit in saying, hey, these are our guys. Let’s go back ’em like they did tonight,” said Pittman. “I’ll be honest with you. Most of the state has been doing that anyhow.”

“I think it’s more for the state to do that than our team because our teams believe that we can beat anybody in the country if we just have the same amount of time that we have the ball.”

Pittman absolutely put his position back in a good place with this win. The Razorbacks are also now among the better teams in the conference as they come into their first idle week. That’s much to celebrate in Fayetteville before their next game in two weeks’ time.

“I do think it’s a big deal, though. The kids will have a really good time tonight and then, you know, we’re off next week,” said Pittman. “It was a wonderful time to go beat the No. 4 team in the country.