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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas is the talk of college football as it enters its open date.
Despite being picked to finish last in the SEC West and several projections having them going 0-10 this year, the Razorbacks are 2-2 and a bad call away from being 3-1 and likely ranked in the top 25.
The dramatic turnaround from consecutive 2-10 seasons, ugly losses to the likes of Colorado State, North Texas, San Jose State and Western Kentucky, and a 20-game SEC losing streak to not only being competitive, but winning games has made Arkansas arguably the most surprising team in the country.
Those inside the Razorbacks’ football facility - like wide receiver Mike Woods - aren’t surprised by how quickly first-year head coach Sam Pittman has gotten them back on track.
“We should have never been 2-10 to be honest with you,” Woods said. “This is what we expect. We never expect to be the laughingstock. We’re supposed to beat these teams. That (was) our mindset going into this year.”
Even though Arkansas didn’t get spring practice this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, it became evident early on to the players - especially those like Ty Clary, who’ve experienced three straight abysmal seasons - that things would be different in 2020.
Leading a top-5 Georgia team into the third quarter of the opener was a good sign, but going into Starkville, Miss., and knocking off a top-20 Mississippi State team fresh off an upset of LSU seemed to open the floodgates.
“You could feel it in fall camp with how the competition would go - you could feel it,” Clary said. “And then when we played our first game you could tell things were different this year. When you beat Mississippi State and get that first win, I think that's when a lot of guys on that team were like 'We could beat them. We can win games.' It was no longer the 'Oh they just scored on us,' it was 'Hey let's get this, let's go.’”
Despite losing in heart-breaking fashion at Auburn, Arkansas bounced back the following week by shutting down Ole Miss’ explosive offense with six interceptions.
That win improved the Razorbacks to 2-2, which is their best start in SEC play since 2015. It’s also just the second time in eight years they’ve won two of their first four conference games. The good vibes that come with that have also contributed to the turnaround.
“After you win, nobody’s feeling bad, nobody’s arguing,” Woods said. “When you lose all season, that’s when stuff like that gets magnified. Little issues get magnified. But when you’re winning, it’s good. We can go in here, we can fix it, and just move on.”
As a senior, Clary has never experienced this level of success at Arkansas. His freshman season was 2017, when the Razorbacks went 4-8 and won only one SEC game - resulting in the firing of Bret Bielema.
The next two years, the Fayetteville native was a starter as the losing reached historic levels, so actually winning and changing the perception of the program has meant even more to him, but he’s far from content.
“Growing up here in Fayetteville and then playing here the past couple of years, going through the struggles the team went through, it’s so exciting, especially for my class,” Clary said. “Everybody’s so happy with the wins we’ve already gotten. But now it’s like, ‘We have to get more.’ You want more. No one’s satisfied.”
Coming to Arkansas in the same class as Clary, Hayden Henry has extensive ties to the program. His father, Mark, was an all-conference center for the Razorbacks and his older brother, Hunter, is arguably the best tight end in school history.
With his younger brother, Hudson, also on the team, plus a grandfather - Skip Coffman - who played basketball here and his mother having graduated from the UA, Henry said he wanted to change the way Arkansas is viewed across the country.
“I just think everyone’s so fed up you know,” Henry said. “We’re so tired of being Arkansas: The bottom feeder. I think it’s been great getting to win some games to realize that, ‘Wow, we have talent on this team’ and we have guys that can play really well at a high level.”
Most of the players Arkansas is putting on the field this season were already in the program when Pittman took over. The Razorbacks added a few key graduate transfers - most notably quarterback Feleipe Franks - and signees, but for the most part, they didn’t overhaul their roster.
In fact, only 15.6 percent of Arkansas’ total offensive, defensive and special teams snaps so far this season have been taken by newcomers. Take out the special teams - where it’s easier for true freshmen to get on the field - and that drops to just 13.7 percent.
What has happened instead is Pittman and his staff have taken what they inherited and made them believe they are better than what the results of the past two seasons have shown.
“I think last year there wasn't enough confidence in our ability,” safety Jalen Catalon said. “I think this year we have a lot more confidence what we can do and we trust each other. We've had a mentality of I've got your back and you've got my back on both offense and defense. I think that's showing. We trust the coaches and we trust the game plan we have.”
Pittman has accomplished that by being genuine. Rather than creating his own catch phrase or go-to cliche - something he joked during an interview on SportsCenter that he wasn’t smart enough to come up with - the long-time assistant coach said he simply speaks from the heart.
“We talked about a piece of paper and when we put it on the piece of paper, we’re going to do it, whether it be good, bad, whatever,” Pittman said. “We’re going to do whatever we put on the piece of paper. The kids understand that. They just needed somebody to believe in them and trust them and motivate them and show them that we cared about them.”
That interview, conducted by Scott Van Pelt during the midnight ET edition of SportsCenter, is just one example of the attention Arkansas has received since beating Ole Miss on Saturday.
There has been a steady flow of praise from national publications, commentators, other media members and general college football fans the past few days.
“It's fun to get the attention and hear praise, but you kind of have to ignore it,” Clary said. “We've only won two games. We're 2-2 right now. There's six more games left in the year. It's more about what we're going to do the next six games rather than what we've done with the first four.”
Considering what they’ve been through the last three years, the positive publicity hasn’t really had an impact on the players yet, so focusing on the task at hand over the next six weeks shouldn’t be a problem.
“I just think we've seen so much of it for the past however many years that the good stuff hasn't really outweighed the bad stuff yet,” Henry said. “A lot of us are still kind of under the impression that we haven't really done enough to prove ourselves yet. We still have quite a bit of a chip on our shoulder.”
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