After having two of his former offensive linemen picked in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft Thursday night, new Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman's reaction went viral. The Razorback football twitter account posted the head hog's video chats with his former players and the video has almost 300,000 views.

The raw emotion Pittman showed then, and ever since he was called for the job in December, has made a big impact on his players already, despite not getting any practice time with their new coach.

"The passion and the love he had on the phone with his wife was so real," starting linebacker Bumper Pool said Friday. "That wasn’t staged at all. When you see something like that, you can tell that he loves his guys. How could you not want to play for somebody that loves you like you’re their son?"

Given Pittman's propensity for emotion, it's no surprise his hand-picked defensive coordinator, former Missouri head coach Barry Odom, displays the same sort of passion for the game and his players.

"You can just see Coach Odom has a fire in his eyes," Pool said. "He’s determined to be the best and it shows in everything he does. He’s strict and he’s so fired up about it. You can see his passion. And that passion spreads out to the whole defense."

Arkansas players are desperately in need of leadership that will make them want to run through a wall, and it seems like they have that at the highest levels of their new coaching staff. The past two seasons, the Razorbacks have started the year with fight but by mid-season, the fire went out.

Pool broke down what he liked about Odom's defense but noted that it wouldn't necessarily be the scheme that makes the difference.

"I like the new system," Pool said. "We’re very multiple and we’re doing some things that I really like. I kind of think that with any scheme it’s just kind of about how hard you play. It doesn’t matter what front it is, if you go out there and just bust it you’re going to be successful in it. I’m excited to see what’s in store."

Arkansas battled with other programs to land Odom as their defensive coordinator, and even gave him a raise a couple months into the job. So far, it seems like the head hog made the right move.

From 2012-14 at Memphis, Odom steadily built the Tigers’ defense into one of the best in the country. Inheriting a unit that ranked 105th in scoring defense at 35.1 points allowed per game, Odom’s defenses were ranked 80th (30.3 ppg) in 2012, 44th (24.6 ppg) in 2013 and 11th (19.5 ppg) in 2014.

That led to him landing the defensive coordinator job at Missouri. His alma mater was already good on that side of the ball, ranking 19th in scoring defense the year before, but Odom took it to an elite level. The Tigers allowed just 16.2 points per game, which ranked fifth nationally, despite going 5-7 with only one SEC win.

When Gary Pinkel retired at the end of that season, Odom was promoted to head coach. His first two defenses in that position struggled, but improved to 50th in 2018 (25.5 ppg) and 17th in 2019 (19.4 ppg).