Sunshine and Bloomin' Onions: Pittman, Hogs excited about Outback Bowl
FAYETTEVILLE — Sam Pittman is already looking forward to ringing in the New Year with sunshine and Bloomin’ Onions.
The second-year coach was all smiles Sunday after learning Arkansas had been invited to play in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1. The Razorbacks will take on Penn State at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., with kickoff scheduled for 11 a.m. CT on ESPN2.
To say the program is excited about its first bowl game in five years - and first Florida bowl since the 2006 season - would be an understatement.
“Sometimes you’re at a university and if you’re not in the college playoff, it’s hard to get them fired up about going to a New Year’s Day bowl,” Pittman said. “But for us, I think it’s going to be very, very easy to get our kids excited about going to Tampa and playing on New Year’s Day in the Outback Bowl.”
Arkansas has risen from the ashes under Pittman.
After going 8-28 with only one SEC win over the three seasons prior to his arrival, the Razorbacks went 3-7 against an all-SEC slate last year. They were set to play in the Texas Bowl, but COVID-19 issues in TCU’s program forced it to be canceled.
Now sitting at 8-4 with a No. 21 ranking in the final College Football Playoff rankings, most of Arkansas’ roster is set to make their first postseason appearance. Only four players - Deon Edwards, Grant Morgan, T.J. Hammonds and Blake Kern - were on the team when the Razorbacks lost to Virginia Tech in the 2016 Belk Bowl and only a handful of others reached bowls at their previous schools.
“There's not many of them in there that's been to a bowl, so to get to a New Year's Day bowl, and one as prestigious as the Outback Bowl, they'll be ready and they'll be excited,” Pittman said. “It'll make practice a little bit easier for them I would say."
Because of that sense of newness, Pittman doesn’t expect anyone to opt out of the bowl. That means he believes wide receiver Treylon Burks will play, despite the recent trend in college football of high-profile players skipping the non-playoff bowls to prepare for the NFL Draft.
“If you really look at it, nobody opts out for a playoff game because they don’t want to hurt the team,” Pittman said. “I feel like we’ve got a whole lot of kids on our team that wouldn’t opt out simply because they don’t want to hurt the team.”
As for the specific matchup, the Razorbacks have never played Penn State in football. In fact, they’ve rarely played opponents from the Big Ten. Arkansas is just 1-6 all-time against the conference, with the lone win coming against Northwestern in 1981, and that includes an 0-4 mark in bowl games.
On the flip side, the Nittany Lions are 18-21 against SEC opponents, and that includes wins over Georgia Tech and Sewanee when they were members of the conference. Most recently, they beat Auburn 28-20 in State College, Pa.
“I think it’s really cool, because for as long as Penn State and Arkansas have been playing football, there are not too many things you can say, ‘That’s never happened before,’” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “So I think I think that’s cool. This is the second SEC opponent we’ve played this year, which I think was also another first.”
The Nittany Lions had what was, by their standards, a disappointing season. Ranked as high as No. 4 in the AP Poll back in mid-October, they ended the year with a 7-5 record that included a 4-5 mark in conference play, which was good for fourth in the Big Ten East.
This will be Penn State’s seventh bowl game in eight years under Franklin, though. Despite following up last year’s 4-5 non-bowl season with a 7-5 record, he was a hot commodity during a wild coaching carousel, which resulted in him earning a new 10-year, $70 million contract last week.
Their paths have never really crossed, even with him having a successful three-year run at Vanderbilt before taking the Penn State job, but Pittman still has a lot of respect for Franklin.
“I’ve met Coach Franklin, but I don't know him much better than that,” Pittman said. “Just (heard) a lot of really positive things that people who have worked with him have said about him. Highly successful guy. Highly intelligent guy. Great football mind.”
Regardless of opponent, Pittman’s genuine pride for what the team accomplished this year in just his second season at the helm was evident throughout his conversation with the media Sunday evening.
“We’re excited to play a team like Penn State,” Pittman said. “A lot of tradition there, good football coach, good players. I’m happy for the state of Arkansas, happy to get down there and get us some nice weather.”
