Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman calls Lance Leipold’s turnaround at Kansas ‘unbelievable’

By Matt Tait     Dec 6, 2022

Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman looks on during the first half of the Outback Bowl NCAA college football game against Penn State, Jan. 1, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. Pittman's task when he was hired in 2019 was to bring a team with 19 straight SEC losses back to national relevancy. He's done it, and now there's excitement around the program. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

Smack dab in the middle of a coaching career that began in 1984 and is alive and well today at the University of Arkansas, Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman spent one season coaching the offensive line at Kansas.

The Jayhawks went 3-8 that season, Terry Allen’s last in charge of the program, and Pittman left after the season. But he was in and around Lawrence long enough to understand the challenges that Kansas football has always faced.

That’s what has him wildly impressed with the job current KU coach Lance Leipold has done in just his second season in charge of the Jayhawks.

The two will meet later this month at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee — 4:30 p.m. Dec. 28 on ESPN — and Pittman on Sunday had to make it clear that he still wanted to win the game while praising Leipold during a conference call with reporters shortly after the matchup was announced.

“We want to win,” Pittman said. “I’m not telling you (we don’t). But I’m really happy for coach (Leipold) and his team, as well. You know, KU deserves a heck of a football coach and a heck of a football team and they’ve got it now.”

In addition to his one season on staff at Kansas, Pittman spent several years in the Sunflower State. The El Reno, Oklahoma native attended Pittsburg State, where he played defensive end from 1980-83, and he started his coaching career with the Gorillas, as well.

In the early 1990s, he spent one year as an assistant at Hutchinson Community College and then two years as the Blue Dragons’ head coach. That spring-boarded him into a lengthy career as a Division I assistant and his stops included Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

He served as an associate head coach at five of his stops, including Arkansas, before being named the head coach of the Razorbacks in 2020.

Longtime Kansas assistant coach and former KU player Clint Bowen was on staff at KU with Pittman in 2001, and he remembers the old offensive line coach as “a true salt of the earth guy.”

“There’s two things I think people respect and appreciate about Sam Pittman the most,” Bowen told the Journal-World on Tuesday. “One, Sam is a friend to everybody. He is genuinely the most sincere person, and he’s got one of those personalities that’s just infectious. You like to be around him. The other thing is he became the head coach of an SEC program the way you would hope anyone would get there, by doing it the right way, treating everyone well, working hard and being really good at what he does.”

Bowen coached KU’s tight ends the one year that Pittman was in Lawrence, and he didn’t know a thing about coaching the position prior to that. He still remembers Pittman leaning over to him on the first day of spring install, telling him he’d help the tight ends work with the tackles to pick up whatever protections and assignments they needed.

“He babysat me that first year I was coaching tight ends,” Bowen said. “He took care of me. To me, he’s the ideal guy that you’d want a head football coach to be.”

Pittman and Leipold do not know each other all that well, though they do share a mutual respect for one another.

“I’ve met him,” Leipold said of Pittman on Sunday. “I know a lot of people that do (know him), and he’s highly respected. He’s done an outstanding job and has really turned that program around. And I think he does things the right way. They’re well coached.”

Pittman’s appreciation for Leipold carried a similar sound, and he said he noticed it well before the Jayhawks became bowl eligible this season.

“Coach Leipold is such a fine coach,” Pittman said. “Not just this year, but some of the things they did last year were out-standing.”

Given his familiarity with how hard it is to win in Lawrence, Pittman called Leipold’s 6-6 season in just his second year at Kansas, “unbelievable.”

“What he’s done there and the positivity around the program, it’s very hard to do,” Pittman said. “I don’t know that anyone’s really surprised, though; he’s done it everywhere he’s been.”

PREV POST

Arkansas LB Drew Sanders opts out of Liberty Bowl matchup vs. Kansas

NEXT POST

104125Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman calls Lance Leipold’s turnaround at Kansas ‘unbelievable’

Author Photo

Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.