Former Razorbacks head coach hired as assistant in November
Arkansas head football coach Sam Pittman speaks during the Southeastern Conference NCAA college football media days Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Dallas. Sam Pittman has made the somewhat risky move of hiring a popular predecessor as an assistant coach, but said Thursday that early returns on working with Bobby Petrino have been positive.. He’s now tasked with helping not only save the Razorbacks’ offense, but also possibly Pittman’s job after a 4-8 collapse in 2023.
“… It’s like a security blanket. I’ve got Bobby there, I had Barry there. … I’ll ask them a question, and I want their opinion and they know it, and we’ll agree on it or we won’t, but we’re both grown men. If we do, we do, and if we don’t, we don’t, and we’ll move on down the road. But that’s been very beneficial to me and I really like him and I have a lot of respect for him.”
The 63-year-old Petrino has remained something of a football vagabond since, spending time as head coach at Western Kentucky, Louisville and Missouri State before he was hired as offensive coordinator at Texas A&M prior to the 2023 season. Things did not go well in College Station, as head coach Jimbo Fisher wasPittman was asked how things might be different for Petrino at Arkansas after rumors Petrino and the famously controlling Fisher disagreed on how to run the Aggies’ offense.
“Now, I’m the oldest in the country. I would want to work with me if I was an offensive coordinator, because I’m going to let you go get them. I’ve got my ideas and I’m going to tell him what I see, but I think if you asked Bobby and Travis and Scott Fountain, they’d say ‘he gives me the freedom to run what I think is best.’ “I don’t know about A&M, but I just know that we’ve given the freedom to go score points.
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