Sam Pittman shares humorous story about recruiting Robert Quinn at North Carolina

Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman has no shortage of anecdotes and tales from the more than dozen places he’s coached football. One of his bigger coups as a recruiter came when he was the offensive line coach under Butch Davis at North Carolina when he was able to land defensive end Robert Quinn.

As Pittman recalled, Quinn’s commitment was far from a sure thing on the morning of signing day — this was in 2008, too, so no early signing period. Davis wanted Pittman to give Quinn a call, a last minute pitch and probe into Quinn’s thinking.

“Well, we got to work that morning of signing day, 6 a.m. in the morning,” Pittman said, “and coach Butch Davis said, ‘Have you talked to Quinn yet?’ And I said ‘No, coach, I talked to him last night and he still didn’t know what he was going to do.’ And he said, ‘Well, call him.’ And I said, ‘Well coach, it’s 6 o’clock in the morning.’ He said, ‘Call him.’ So I text him and all those kind of things and then his mother — and I text his mama — and his mother texts back and she said, ‘You’re going to be excited here in a little bit.'”

Quinn ended up committing to North Carolina, played three seasons in Chapel Hill from 2008-10 and was selected 14th overall in the 2011 NFL Draft by the then-St. Louis Rams. He’s currently on the roster with the Chicago Bears.

Pittman, then the offensive line coach, added to the tale of Quinn’s recruitment, sharing about a time when the late John Blake, at that time UNC’s defensive line coach, went to visit Quinn.

“Because Alabama was recruiting him hard,” Pittman said, “Blake went in there and said, ‘You’re going to go to Alabama when their running backs coach is recruiting you?’ And Quinn looked right at him and said, ‘Well, if I go to North Carolina the O-line coach is recruiting me there.’ Blake had a huge ego. It crushed him. Anyway, we were fortunate enough to get Rob.”