Sam Pittman raves about Cam Little's value to all areas of Arkansas roster

While speaking with media after the second scrimmage of fall camp, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman shared his appreciation for kicker Cam Little. According to Pittman, the impact that Little has as a reliable kicker for the Razorbacks is hard to fully appreciate if you only look at his stats.

Sam Pittman on Cam Little’s impact

During his press appearance on Saturday, Pittman was asked how it would be possible to see improvement in his sophomore kicker after he went 20-for-24 on field goal attempts as a freshman. Pittman opened up with a joke about how good Little was last season, and wondered if it was possible to see him get much better.

“Well I guess he could make 24 out of 24. That would be better than 20 out of 24,” answered Pittman. “What’s 20 out of 24, 83.3 percent?”

“That’s just Grove [High School] education baby,” Pittman continued after nobody could answer him quickly. “Six years of P.E. degree, that’s six years of professional P.E. degree at Pitt State.”

Pittman was spot on with his percentage guess, but still took a chance to joke about his former high school and college days before giving a very detailed answer about how important his kicker was.

“We did a deal the other day about value on the team. So value has a definition … If you put something in front of value, elite value, some value, kinda value, little bit of value — but you still have value. Well I had Cam stand up and talk about his value to the team. He was the most head nod agreement in the building. And I told him at that point, I think he affects the entire team because we know if we can stop them and get the ball back that we have a chance to win the game, on defense.

“We know that if we have the ball and we can get it anywhere close to the 35 [yard line], we can win the game. That affects the whole thinking, because if you’re going down there and going ‘if we don’t score a touchdown, we ain’t gonna make this kick.’ That affects everybody. He’s got unbelievable value to our team because we think he’s gonna make every one of them. Sometimes he doesn’t.

“But I don’t know how you get better than 20 … but we ain’t gonna trade him, I can promise you that. He’s got a stronger leg and been very accurate in camp.”

Little’s freshman effort was an outstanding one, making 20-of-24 field goal attempts on his way to making the SEC All-Freshman team. The 20 makes was the third-most in a single season by a Razorback kicker, and his perfect 46-for-46 extra point attempts tied the seventh-most in program history as well.