11 questions with Sam Pittman: His jukebox playlist, influence of Uncle Lester, Lou Holtz

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Fresh off a nine-win campaign and now entering a season with rising expectations, Sam Pittman is making good on his vow to restore pride in Arkansas football.

During a wide-ranging interview with the USA TODAY Network, Pittman discussed Arkansas' momentum, his desire to play for the Razorbacks under coach Lou Holtz and how his uncle, Lester, introduced him to Arkansas fandom and what music is on his jukebox.

Here is a portion of that interview, with questions and answers edited for brevity and clarity.

What has you excited about this program entering your third season?

We have a quarterback back. I think that’s a huge deal for us. I’m excited about my coaching staff. I think we’ve got a good group of people who know how to teach, know how to talk to kids, know how to motivate.

Our kids are starting to believe that whomever we roll out there, we’ve got a chance. I’m a little old school about loyalty, toughness and working hard, and they believe that that’s how we can win.

When you arrived here, did you have a sense of the challenge that awaited? What was your expectation?

The goal, honestly, was to make the folks in the state of Arkansas proud of our football team again. So, I don’t know what that expectation was, to be honest with you.

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First of all, we wanted to get to where we were competitive and that we were doing things right, that we were tough, that we played hard, we were a well-coached and managed team. But, I don’t think wins and losses were a concern.

I like that we play hard, and I like that we’re tough. We’re getting better and better, but on Saturday, you don’t always have to have the best players. You just have to have the best team, and we’re getting better and better. We believe that we can compete with whoever is out there.

Hunter Yurachek told me in the spring that, when he conducted the coaching search, some candidates explained why the Arkansas job could be a challenge or offered reasons against taking the job. He said he didn’t hear any of that when he talked with you. Why was your outlook optimistic?

I think I was a little bit different, too, than the other candidates. At least the folks that I heard, they were established college football coaches, and if you look at it, you go into the SEC West, really no matter what the name of the team is, you better be good to survive.

I remember last year, we played Mississippi State, which would have been our ninth game – Week 10 – and they were ranked 17th in the country. Mississippi State has got a really good program, but you also have Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss. It’s scary today.

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I think if the guys were established coaches and they looked down at our schedule, they’re going, ‘Hmm, I don’t know, man.’ Especially when we’d won one SEC game in three years. You might think this would be a lengthy turnaround. You might think it would be hard to get to winning for several years.

For me, I wanted my opportunity. And to think that I could have an opportunity to be the head coach at Arkansas, honestly, I didn’t care who we were playing or what we had done or anything. I knew I understand the SEC, and I thought we could recruit to Arkansas, because I knew Arkansas. I knew the facilities. I knew the passion of the fans, which I think there’s a lot to be said for that. We’re a very unique state, and I had the passion that I thought Arkansas should be something different than what it was and felt like it could be.

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You’ve been an assistant at multiple SEC schools. Why is it you felt especially passionate about this place?

I think a little bit of it had to do with location. A lot of it had to do with, between my junior and senior year in high school, I came over to camp. They had, a little bit, recruited me, and I wanted to play here so bad out of high school.

The other part was, I had an uncle and cousins that lived in Dover, and their passion for Arkansas was so high that it was almost weird. They had Hogs all over the place, and you go into the house and they got little Hog things everywhere. Everything is a Hog. Their passion was unbelievable. I thought, ‘I wonder if the whole state is like that?’ And, I think it was. It was just unique.

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When I was here before as an offensive line coach, I think it was a big deal to my mother. She liked Arkansas, as well.

I think it was all those things, but we had been out East for a while – Northern Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia – quite a ways off from home. Coming back home, that was really cool.

I felt like I fit with the people of Arkansas. I could be me, and I felt like the state of Arkansas would accept me, just being me. I wouldn’t fit in a lot of places, but I feel like I do in the state of Arkansas.

What do you mean when you say you can be yourself here?

I don’t have the best grammar. I’m not the best-looking head coach you can hire. I’m country. And, I guess when I say that, I can be comfortable with all those things, because the state will accept me as long as I’m genuine.

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This is a state where, I feel like, as long as you have a passion for your job and for the people of the state and you can put a team out there that kind of reflects the state – lunch pail, hard-working, tough, loyal – if you can put a team out there like that, then they’ll accept you and support you.

That camp you went to here between your junior and senior years of high school, you were hoping to get a scholarship here and didn’t?

Yes. It was a great camp, by the way. It was a Lou Holtz football camp. They had just beaten Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, and we came over here. It was a great camp.

You worked during the day – individual drills, this, that and the other, ran sprints at the end of practice – and then you played volleyball, flag football, tug of war and basketball. They’d put you in teams, and at night, you’d play that. That was so much fun. It was a great camp. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

I ran a 4.83 at the camp, and I was about 195 pounds at the camp – 195 and a 4.83, you’re not going to Arkansas.

When the Hogs played at home my senior year, we would come over to the home games. I probably saw two or three. I was born and raised in western Oklahoma. I was an Oklahoma fan. Then, we moved to eastern Oklahoma my junior year in high school.

There’s OU fans everywhere, but if you’re over in western Oklahoma or central Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, you’re predominantly, at that time, OU.

You start moving a little bit east, and it became Oklahoma State more. Then you get out here by the border, and there was a lot of Arkansas fans at that point. Arkansas was good, too.

For as many years as you had been an assistant, was it getting to the point where you thought the window had closed for this type of head coaching opportunity?

I had that drive to be a head coach. I felt like I could do it. But when I got in my 50s, mid-50s, in that area, I was making a lot of money as an assistant. At one point I was there with Jamie, and I had talked about it. ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I’m fine with it.’ You go to different goals.

I do remember that Sunday morning (during the 2019 coaching search), I didn’t think I was going to get the job. I hadn’t really heard from them that Saturday night, and I do remember, I told Jamie, ‘We need to thank the Lord for what we have.’ I was making a million dollars a year at Georgia and had a great offensive line room. We were getting ready to go to the Sugar Bowl again. Instead of going, ‘Why not me? Why not me at Arkansas?’ I said, ‘We’ve got to be really thankful for what we have.’

Then, at 10 o’clock that morning, Jamie had gotten a call, because I used her phone to talk to the University of Arkansas.

If it wouldn’t have happened, I would have been OK with that, too. This isn’t to prove that I can do it. It really isn’t. This is about having a group of people together that enjoy each other’s company, that like to come to work and getting the program back to where it belongs.

It’s now become synonymous with you: 'Turn that damn jukebox on.' How did that come about in the first place?

“Mississippi State (victory in 2020). I go in the locker room and I talk to them, and I’m standing here, and over here against a pole, is a boombox. (It was a Bluetooth speaker.)

So, I look at it, and I’m talking a deal, and the kids, they want me to shut the hell up so they can celebrate, and we’re visiting.

I’d seen it over there, and no louder than (a conversational tone), I said, ‘Hey, turn that damn jukebox on.’”

“And they did. Kids were dancing around, having fun. It ain’t two or three days later, I got a shirt from Nike that says ‘Turn that damn jukebox on.' ... That's how it started.

“Now, we call the Hogs when we win. We visit, call the Hogs, and then, ‘Turn that damn jukebox on.’ They can’t wait. They want me to shut up.

What’s your favorite music to play on your jukebox? (Pittman has a Rock-Ola jukebox in his office loaded with CDs.)

You can easily hear it coming in that front door of the facility. It’s got a great sound to it.

I’ve got a couple of CDs on there from Fleetwood Mac that I really like. I’ve got three George Straits on there. I’ve got a Garth Brooks on there that I like. I got some mixed CDs of ‘70s music that my brother-in-law made. I’ve got R&B. I’ve got all kinds.

Quarterback KJ Jefferson …

Big deal. Big deal. He’s perfect for our offense. A great kid. Big deal. Big deal to have him back. Malik Hornsby, we’ve got to give him that opportunity, as well. He’s so fast. We’ve got to get him on the field. We’re going to try to do that, too, but KJ has really matured.

KJ he would tell you that his best learning experience was when Feleipe Franks was here. They had a really close relationship, and KJ ain’t getting on the field. And there was never hang your head or 'I ought to be playing,' any of that stuff. Then, when he got the opportunity against Missouri, we scored 48 points. We lost, but we ran up 48 points. Really, that was his opportunity of that year.

So, I had high respect for his character and the way he was raised. To me, he’s Arkansas. He’s us. If you’re going to have somebody that really reflects what you’re trying to do with your program and he happens to be the quarterback, that’s a big deal.

What’s his next step?

I think he’s got to be a little bit better runner than he was last year. He’s got to throw the intermediate routes a little bit better. He’s great with the long ball. He’s great with taking care of the football, but we’re going to probably need him to extend his running package.

We did a really good job I felt like last year in two-minute situations, but there’s some other situations – third-and-1, third-and-2 – where I think we have to get better.

He’s a great leader. You can come to practice, and you don’t have to say, ‘Stay away from the quarterback.’ Our guys, they get it. He’s the guy. Now, he’s one of 22, but they get it. This guy right here, we can go win. We keep him healthy, and we can win football games. You can just feel it at practice.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. If you enjoy Blake’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Arkansas football: Sam Pittman talks jukebox, KJ Jefferson, Lou Holtz