If Nobody Wants to Talk Bad About Hogs, Sam Will 'Just Make It Up'
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Don't worry about Arkansas keeping a chip on the shoulder this season.
"If nobody's talking bad about us we'll just make it up," Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman told the media Thursday afternoon before the start of spring drills Sunday.
He was probably joking a little, but when told someone picked them sixth in the country Pittman seemed a bit surprised.
"I don't know who picked us sixth in the country, but c'mon ..." he chuckled. "We're going to strive to get that way. We have extreme confidence."
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After a three-win season in his first season that was a train wreck of distractions, the Hogs caught a lot of folks napping and rode some fortunate bounces to a 9-4 record with a win over Penn State in the Outback Bowl.
None of that means much of anything now. But there won't be anybody overlooking the Hogs.
"We have a lot of kids coming back," Pittman said. "We should have a good team. I find it hard to think that as the season went on teams were over-looking us. We beat some pretty good teams and got in the Top 10 in the country.
"I'm pretty sure they figured out we had a decent football team."
Preseason rankings right now mean nothing. Everybody is undefeated, untied and unscored on. Coaches don't poor-mouth their teams in the spring much anymore.
Pittman wasn't Wednesday.
"We'll see what happens," he said.
One thing he'll do, though, is make sure they keep that chip in their shoulder.
"I can promise you our team isn't going around patting itself on the back," Pittman said. "Last year was last year. We've got something to prove."
But, whether he wants to admit it or not, Arkansas will now be hunted more than the one doing the hunting. Expect them to be ranked in most folks' preseasonTop 25.
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Michael Morrison/USA TODAY Sports
Razorbacks center Ricky Stromberg makes the line calls during last October's game against UAPB in Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium and he only played in the first half. (Ted McClenning / allHOGS Images)
Arkansas Communications
Pittman is probably going to be doing a lot of turning that chip into a boulder on the players' shoulders.
"No matter what people say, you still ...," he stopped just short of saying they have to prove it. "Not everybody's going to say good about you so you still have to have that chip to prove somebody wrong."
Pittman will find something to use as motivation.
Even, as he said, they have to just make it up.
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