Sam Pittman didn't think he had a chance to be Tennessee's offensive line coach in 2012
Sam Pittman didn’t think he stood a chance. He had made the trip to Knoxville to interview for a spot on Tennessee’s 2012 coaching staff, but one step inside Neyland Stadium suddenly seeded heavy doubt in his mind.
“The (graduate assistant) took me over to the stadium,” Pittman said during his weekly press conference on Monday, “and I’d never been there before.”
Derek Dooley was the head coach doing the hiring and, according to Pittman, he was in front of then-Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart discussing the potential hiring of Pittman while Pittman got the stadium tour.
At the time, Pittman was North Carolina’s associate head coach and offensive line coach after stops at Northern Illinois, Kansas, Western Michigan, Oklahoma, Cincinnati and Hutchinson Community College over the previous two decades.
“(Dooley) was talking to AD about if he could hire me,” Pittman said, “how much he’s going to pay me and all that.”
Pittman was looking for a foot in the door in the Southeastern Conference. That is, until he walked into Neyland, Tennessee’s 101,915-seat college football cathedral.
“I walked in the stadium and I told the GA, I said, ‘take me back,’” Pittman said. “He said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Hell, they ain’t going to hire me to coach in the stadium like this.’ It was unbelievable. It was like the coliseum. I said, I’m not getting a job, take me back. And he started laughing.”
Thankfully for Pittman, Dooley wasn’t laughing.
“When I got back I had a contract and a job,” Pittman said. “But it’s one of those places, it’s an SEC school, but it’s one of those places that has a lot of history and really great place to live. Good opportunity at the time to obviously get in the SEC as well for me.”
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Dooley’s days at Tennessee were numbered. The staff he put together for 2012 was one-and-done after a 5-7 season. Dooley himself was fired after a 41-18 loss at Vanderbilt, leaving offensive coordinator Jim Chaney as the interim head coach for a 37-17 win over Kentucky in the season finale.
Dooley went 15-21 in three seasons in Knoxville, with an abysmal 4-19 record in SEC play. He won just one SEC game over his final two seasons, going 1-14 against the league in 2011 and 2012.
But he gave Pittman his SEC start and Pittman hasn’t left since.
He landed at Arkansas after being let go at Tennessee, coaching the Razorback offensive line from 2013-15. He went to Georgia to coach the offensive line from 2016-19, before returning to Arkansas as head coach in 2020.
Pittman is 26-27 in his fifth season at Arkansas. The Hogs went 16-10 over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, with wins in the Outback Bowl and Liberty Bowl, but finished 4-8 last season.
He made his return to Neyland with Arkansas as an assistant coach in 2015, when the Razorbacks rallied from an early 14-0 deficit to win 24-20 in Knoxville. His 2020 Arkansas team rallied from down 13-0 at halftime to beat the Vols 24-13 in Fayetteville during the COVID-shortened season.
“Tennessee was a short stay, about 11 months or something,” Pittman said. “But I’m happy Derek Dooley hired me and gave me that opportunity.”
