What Sam Pittman said after Arkansas beat Tennessee 19-14

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – What an Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said after defeating No. 4 Tennessee 19-14 at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium on Saturday night:

Opening speech

“Tennessee had a very physical team. And they came into the game ranked No. 1 in offense and No. 1 in defense. Very good football team. Our kids and our coaches did a great job preparing our guys and instilling in them the belief that we can win tonight. These guys are happy, they are not surprised. If we have the same number of turnovers, we can play with anyone. And in the two games we've lost at this point, we've had more turnovers than we've had. But our coaches have done a great job of communicating that we have a really good football team. We can compete if we take care of the football and try to tackle well and play smart. We did it.

“We didn’t score any points there in the red zone in the first half. And then we scored touchdowns in the second half. Once again really good work from our coaches and our players. You start coaching for moments like what just happened. And it's about seeing the kids and the smiles on their faces and the hard work they do. Because there are many teams that cannot achieve this feeling. And that's what we did tonight. And if you're interested, it was a one-score game, maybe you'd like to write about that too.

“But Go Hogs. The fans won the game for us. There were four offside calls. They started, I think it was the sixth largest crowd in the history of the University of Arkansas. And our fans gave us four false starts, which helped us enormously. And our atmosphere and our performance today was like any elite university football program. Nobody had anything with us today. And that was the fans in the facilities and so on. That was a great, great atmosphere for college football and the fans made that happen for us and we appreciate them.”

The status of Taylen Green and the play of backup QB Malachi Singleton

“Yeah, I think Talen, we’ll see. Apparently it wasn't so bad for us not to ask him how he felt. Our diagnosis for him was: If he wanted to get back into the game, he could do it. Then he was attacked again and then we just said, okay, that's enough. Let's use Malachi. Malachi, when he came in we didn't have good field position, so Bobby tried to take care of that along with field position.

So if Bobby just calls what he wants to be an insult there, we're usually pretty good. I think part of it was Malachi making sure we got a little confidence there and I never had a hard time making a punt. And then the last two trips he was phenomenal. He handled it very, very well. And scored the touchdown there to advance. And he had been here for a long time and hadn't been able to play. And to go in there and score the winning touchdown with the help of 10 other guys must be really fulfilling for him. I’m really happy for him.”

What the Arkansas defense did to keep Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava off the schedule

“The game plan came in on Sunday night, T-Will (Travis Williams) talked about what he thought he wanted to do. And we started practicing it on Monday. There were some optimizations and so on. But I think, first of all, we did something that they had never seen us do before. Secondly, we did it really well. We wouldn't leave them behind if we could help. And we were really worried about stopping the run, but we always had the edge covered because we had to get corners out on a read run. And we got the field linebacker out of a read run. And we mixed it up, so we had a little bit of the weird front and then a little bit of the four man and mixed it up. We brought zero lightning heat. I just thought Travis did a great job managing the defensive game. And more importantly, we have to convince the kids what we are going to do to stop this very, very, very aggressive offensive.”

His emotions as Arkansas got the final hold and time ran out

“Of course they (Tennessee) think their kids deserve to win. They took the time and I just say, ‘Man, we’ve got two plays left, don’t let them score.’ Because I know our kids. We have to win this. And so I just thought, let's get her on the ground, get her on the ground. Honestly, I thought, hey, no penalties in the end zone, to be honest. But whenever (Nico Iamleava) got flushed and couldn't find anyone, Nico would eventually put the ball away to run, and I wanted to see if he got the first down, and he did. But the clock has run out. So I was just thinking about all this and all these things. And when it was over, I thought about how proud the state of Arkansas is of its football team, and that's the only damn reason, well, it's not the reason I took the job, but that's one of the Main reasons I came here I wanted to try to make the state proud of the team.”

Arkansas' offensive line slows Tennessee's pass rush

“Man, I was so proud of our offensive line in that regard. We go through the first half and we had a little bit of an empty defense at one point, (Tennessee) came up. They brought two at us from the edge and Talen had to get out of there. But I kept saying through the headsets, “Man, we're protecting him really well.” And then they had to add some extra warmth. They also went to zero once or twice. But that's our best game, protecting the quarterback, and we have to get better. But this is our best game against a really good defense. So you've done a lot. Bobby and Eric got together and decided how to protect ourselves, but some of them were the same protections, some were the same. I really liked what Bobby did during the move. There were some umbrellas out there, we had a little tunnel umbrella, we had two flare umbrellas. And it slows down the guys on the outside. And I thought those guys really made a conscious effort to help those tackles.”

The offensive game plan for Arkansas, Bobby Petrino is messing everything up

“To be honest, we didn't have Luke or Tyrus for most of the week. They got a few reps on Wednesday, a little bit on Thursday, so game-planning wise they had to be a little tricky now. So I thought it was really, really good. (Tennessee has) a good defense. We scored 19 points and would have scored 15 points. But we scored 19 points, won the game and were tough and resilient. But I thought Bobby (Petrino) and his team and his staff did a wonderful job of getting the guys ready with the limited tight ends available.”

Tennessee gains momentum in the third quarter, Arkansas responds and whether a win like this can be a turning point

“I don't know. Definitely feels good right now. But you know, it takes two teams out there and they're probably talking about something that I think we did pretty well, you know what I mean? Hence “It's very, very fulfilling to be up here and win for the kids and the coaching staff. Here's what I know: Our team believes we can beat people, and this backs up that we can.”

What was going on on the Arkansas sideline after Tennessee took a 14-3 lead

“Coaching all the time. But do I specifically think it changed the outcome of the game? Probably not. We just didn't want to panic. And we had to fix some things. So we did it. And we had to get the ball rolling a little better on offense, and we did that. But you know, whenever you step off the field, you try to correct the mistake and then continue to try to figure out what we can do. And we went back to a little flare screen and some other things. But I was probably disappointed at some point tonight because we had two penalties. We kind of gave it, we didn't give it, (Tennessee) still deserved it, but we had two penalties on the second touchdown (drive) and that was a little disappointing. But other than that – I talked to these two kids, they didn't mean to do it – they still played a hell of a game. That was probably the only disappointment. We had to get a few penalties to give them some momentum.”

Arkansas gives Tennessee a 3-2-6 look defensively, which is why the Razorbacks went that route

“(Tennessee) could throw it and their wide outs can run. So we looked at Oklahoma and they had some success, they kept their numbers at 25. And despite all that, did it fit into our plans? But that's where it started, with the tape about Oklahoma. Because they are the only ones who have done anything good at all. The rest were in their fifties, sixties and seventies. That’s why we implemented some of it.”

What the win over Tennessee could mean for Arkansas for the rest of the season

“I'm not sure if this win will do anything. In this locker room, they think we're pretty good. They work hard, they are together. I think it will do more for the state that came here to say, 'Hey, they're going to fire the coach, you're going to do this, you're going to do that.' When the hell are we going to get this guy out of here?' All that stuff. I think maybe it will unify the state a little. And to say, “Hey, these are our guys, let’s get them back,” like they did tonight. And I'll be honest with you, most states did that anyway. But I think it's more up to the state to do that than our team. Because our team is convinced that we can beat anyone in the country if we have the ball just as often. However, I think it's a big deal and the kids are really going to have a lot of fun tonight and it starts next week. It was a wonderful time beating the No. 4 team in the country.”