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Arkansas Players Confront OL Coach About Leaving For Georgia

SamPittman

With Kirby Smart taking the head coaching job at Georgia, he has been looking to fill out his coaching staff and he hasn’t been looking too far to do it. There was some chatter of Smart luring Alabama strength coach Scott Cochran to Athens, but that didn’t end up panning out.

One coach that Smart was able to poach from an SEC opponent was Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman. Pittman has been instrumental in improving the Hawgs ground attack and Bret Bielema wasn’t too happy with Pittman leaving for another SEC school.

Bielema and some players felt so strongly about Pittman leaving that he and some players showed up at Pittman’s home looking for some answers.

Here are the details from Gridiron Now:

“I think when you’re dealing with 19-, 20- and 21-year-old kids, they’re going to be emotional,” Bielema said after the last-ditch effort of loading up the offensive line and showing up on Pittman’s doorstep failed. “Some were mad, sad, sad then mad. It’s a part of the job no one wants to talk about, and Sam, because of the way he recruits and the way he handles people — until this matter — had been very personal.”

Players were not the only ones upset by Pittman’s departure. Bielema was not scheduled to speak with the media over the weekend, but he felt it necessary under the circumstances. Boss Hog made it clear that having made moves himself, he understands that coaches leave, but this was different.

“This one took place within the conference, and I just wanted Sam to address the linemen as to why this was happening,” Bielema said Saturday. “I thought that was the last thing he could do, and he didn’t want to do that, so I just took them to him.”

Pittman took offense to Bielema saying he didn’t plan to meet with his players about leaving, so he took to Twitter to set the record straight on that.

This whole thing reeks of saltiness and hurt feelings on the Arkansas side of things. Coaches come and go every year, that’s the way the profession works. Coaches have to make hard decisions when it comes to career moves and Pittman felt going to Georgia was best for him and his family.

The whole showing up at Pittman’s doorstep and putting words in his mouth seems a bit over the top in my opinion.

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