New interim head Hog Bobby Petrino told reporters Monday that the Arkansas football team would get back to the “principles of great defense” in the aftermath of Hunter Yurachek’s firing of head coach Sam Pittman on Sunday.
Petrino joined his AD in front of Arkansas beat reporters and more to answer questions about Pittman’s firing, the promotion of Petrino to interim, Petrino’s letting go of DC Travis Williams and defensive assistants Deke Adams and Marcus Woodson, the program’s commitment to providing the next permanent coach with the resources needed to compete in the SEC and more.
Kolby Smith and Chris Wilson from the current staff will serve as interim OC and interim DC, respectively. Yurachek said he had reached a deal with Pittman on his buyout. The former head Hog will receive 62.5 percent of his buyout, which comes out to roughly $7.7 million over the next three years. Without Pittman’s consent to the buyout, the UA would have owed him more than $9 million.
Petrino equated the situation to essentially a job interview for coaches and players, those who will be coming back and those looking to transfer.
Yurachek’s opening statement:
“Yesterday was a really tough day for me personally, was a real tough day for Coach Pittman and his wife, Jamie, but I think we all watched the same thing here at Razorback Stadium on Saturday. In front of an incredible crowd, incredible atmosphere before a national television audience, against the first time playing, Notre Dame and our performance was just unacceptable. It wasn’t Razorback football performance that any of us were proud of, and that ultimately falls at the feet of the head coach.”
Yurachek on plans to generate more resources to help the football team be competitive in the SEC:
“I mean, coming out of our board meeting last Friday, I received kind of a charge from our board to come back to Chancellor [Charles] Robinson and them with a plan of how we can increase the head coaches pool, the assistant coaches pool, the support staff pool, the operational pool, moving forward and how we would support the increases in that and I’ll have an opportunity to do that next couple of weeks and I truly believe that we will have everything that we needed in place to attract the best head coach for a program and give that head coach, the resources they need to be competitive in the SEC.”
Yurachek on Pittman’s buyout:
“If we’d waited until October and if the season continued the direction it was, he would have fallen below .500, so part of our meeting was getting his representatives on the phone, and we landed at a sweet spot for both of us. I thought the 62.5 percent could save the university about $1.5 million and kind of fell between that 50 percent and 75 percent mark.”
Petrino on initial fixes to the team:
“The first thing we have to do is go back to the principles of defense. To stop people on offense, you have to stop the run first. We haven’t been able to stop the run. We’re looking right now at really finding out what our base defense is going to be from here on and build off of that.”
Yurachek on the coaching search and Petrino’s status as a candidate for the permanent job:
“[Petrino] accepted this opportunity with the understanding that he also wanted an opportunity to formally be a candidate for our head coaching position, and he will have that opportunity, but we’ll also subsequently run a search for our next head coach that same time. And I’ve got a little bit longer runway to do that, and to do my due diligence, and have to do some really good research, and we’ll find a good candidate, whether that’s Coach Petrino or someone else.”
Petrino on team unity: “It feels like there’s been a separation of the offense and defense. We need ’em to come together as one unit.”
Petrino on big-picture priorities: “I think we’ve got to get back to that special place where everybody is proud of the Hogs. That’s what we’ve got to do over the next nine weeks. We’ve got to unify the state.”
Yurachek on what he is seeking in a head coach:
“You have to have someone, first and foremost, that’s a proven winner and proven that they can build a program. Someone that can come in and establish what your culture is going to be as a football program on both sides of the ball and special teams. You want somebody that has some energy and can re-energize this program and re-energize our fan base. I think probably the key thing is, they’ve got to be able to embrace and adapt to what is a changing environment in college athletics, and to be able to have some advanced scouting that’s really in-depth, and you can go headfirst into the transfer portal. And that’s the way you’re going to build a program quickly. The days of bringing in 25 or 30 freshmen and thinking that you can turn a program with freshmen, they’re going to go by the wayside, especially in football, and you’ve got to be able to really use that transfer portal … and we’re going to provide that staff with the resources they need to do so.”
Yurachek on finding the money and resources to attract a high-caliber coach:
“Absolutely, money will be a factor at some point in time, because there’s limited resources. But I think we saw with the hiring of Coach Calipari and what we were able to do there with him and his staff and what that’s meant to our basketball program. I think we can build a similar model within reason for our football program. I think there’ll be people across this state that will step up for us. I think there’s an opportunity for the university to potentially help us , and we’re continuing to look at new ways to generate revenue within our athletic program. Our football program is far too important to the health of our athletic program for us to take it for granted.
“Coach Pittman did not have the resources he needed to compete in this conference right now. Whoever the next football coach is will have the resources for revenue sharing and NIL to compete in this conference.”
Yurachek, on his job security, when asked if he would be the one making the hire:
“I have not received any other indication to the contrary.”
Petrino on player reactions to the move:
“It’s obviously mixed reactions. We’ve got some people who are excited and energized, and we have some people who are hurt a little bit, and their feelings are down. That’s natural. I don’t want to minimize their feelings, but at some point, we’ve got to step forward.”
Yurachek on NIL and Arkansas football:
“I think there’s some misinformation out there about how competitive we are going to be moving forward in the NIL space. We’ve had over $500,000 of agreements that have gone through the ‘NIL Go’ system by way of our student-athletes. That’s roughly $15,000 per agreement. The national average is about $5,800. We have an NIL strategist within our front office. Our team at Learfield is actively soliciting opportunities for our student-athletes to have NIL agreements; we’re at that full cap from a revenue-sharing standpoint. So whoever the next football coach is is going to have the resources from a revenue-sharing percentage and NIL to compete within this conference.”
Yurachek on the Memphis and Notre Dame losses accelerating the move: “Absolutely, yeah. I did not see the performance that I saw Saturday coming. Quite honestly, I thought we’d be really competitive in that game, and that we’d come out with a lot of energy and a lot of passion and a lot of fight, and I don’t think any of us saw that on that field, on any aspect of the game.”
Petrino on his relationship with interim DC Chris Wilson: “My experience goes way back to having to battle against him when he had all the great defensive lines at Mississippi State. That’s when I started to know who he was, what about him. Guy’s got a Super Bowl ring. Brings a lot of credibility to the room.”
Yurachek’s message to fans to close the presser: “We will get our football program back to a place where everyone across the state is proud to say they’re an Arkansas Razorback.”
Image above: Hunter Yurachek answers questions at Monday’s presser. (Image courtesy of 24/7 Sports)
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