There’s a time and a place for everything. Shockingly, watching The Polar Express at halftime of a college football game down 27-3 to a conference foe is not one of those times.
Coming off of a much-needed 39-36 victory over the Florida Gators, Arkansas found itself sitting with a 3-6 (1-5 SEC) record and its bowl-game hopes still alive. All the Razorbacks needed to do was win out, and that started with a home tilt against an average Auburn Tigers team.
Unfortunately for head coach Sam Pittman and the Hogs, the first half didn’t go as planned against the Tigers. A regression of the offense from the Florida game and complete reversal of a season-long surprisingly successful defense led to a 24-point deficit that seemed insurmountable after two quarters.
If Arkansas was going to become competitive in the SEC West matchup, it needed to make some halftime adjustments. Based on the 48-10 final score of the game, not very many of those were successfully made. In fact, the redshirt locker room decided to watch a popular Christmas movie for children, instead.
It's important to note that the portion of the locker room the movie was being watched in is reserved only for redshirt players who weren't going to play anyways, a team rep of the football team confirmed to HawgBeat. Still, though, the optics of the situation aren't great.
"Yeah, I hadn’t seen Polar Express," Pittman said Monday. "But, so I don’t really know my thoughts on the movie. But, in our locker room — I want to reward our kids by letting them run through the “A” if they practice well. So we don’t have enough lockers in our main locker to house all the kids. So, some of them have to go in a separate locker. In a separate door to the locker.
"And so, the young man I’ve already addressed it with him. He made a mistake. That’s why you don’t want cameras in the locker room for several reason, you know because of showering, this that and the other. But it’s hard because the music is on as well, you know what I’m saying. So that’s a team rule, you can’t have your (phone). But it’s also a team rule that you don’t post anything after Friday night, after we leave on Friday.
"So the young man made a mistake. Sent it to a friend, friend sent it to his brother. Add on what have you. I’ve already addressed it and I think we’re fine there. It was just a mistake that I think a young man made and I wish he wouldn’t have. He came in and was very sorry for it, was remorseful for it, so we’re going to move on."
In the end, Arkansas only scored one touchdown through four quarters. The offense totaled just 255 yards and gave up 517 to the Tigers. The loss officially ended the Razorbacks post-season hopes as they can no longer win six games to reach bowl-eligibility.
"Well it was halftime, so it wasn't during the game," Pittman said. "But, no. Look, I'll be honest with you, I didn't even know there was a TV in there. And somehow the TV got turned on. I don't think, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I don't think that him being in the redshirt locker room at halftime watching a movie had anything to do with us getting our butts kicked."
Up next, Arkansas (3-7, 1-6 SEC) will face off against the FIU Panthers (4-6, 1-6 CUSA) on Saturday at Reynolds Razorback Stadium. The game is set to kickoff at 6:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
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