Arkansas coach Sam Pittman is a fan of Lance Leipold: ‘I admire him as a man’
Arkansas offensive lineman Dalton Wagner has flipped the channel to a Kansas football game more than once this season.
In fact, Wagner’s become a fan of KU football.
Now, his Razorbacks (6-6, 3-5 SEC) face the Jayhawks (6-6, 3-5 Big 12) in the Liberty Bowl at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
“I’ve been so happy to see Kansas’ success this year,” Wagner said Monday. “I’ve been rooting for Kansas all the time and what they’ve been doing. You see it throughout the season: …’ Hey, Kansas beat these guys and Kansas beat these guys.’ It’s awesome because you see so much of what we were in Kansas.
“There’s a time when people were counting us out a couple of years ago. ‘Oh, Arkansas is Arkansas.’ People are probably like, ‘Kansas is Kansas,’ but Kansas ain’t Kansas. They are getting after it now. They are doing such an awesome job. It was very awesome to watch this season. … I really can’t wait to see their future, too.”
He wasn’t the only one to pass along high praise.
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman knows all about building a program from the ground up. He’s led the Razorbacks to two straight bowl games after a 3-7 season in 2020.
Like Wagner, he believes the programs are similar.
“It’s fun when you are going through like our season last year,” Pittman said on his 2021 team (9-4, 4-4 SEC). “When you are beating LSU and beating (Texas) A&M, you know it’s fun. … Kansas has high hopes for their future and for them to get bowl eligible, I think, is obviously a huge accomplishment for their program and I am happy for them.”
Pittman is quite fond of Lawrence. He was briefly an offensive line coach at KU in 2001 under former KU coach Terry Allen. Pittman and the rest of the staff were let go after the Jayhawks failed to qualify for a bowl game. Kansas finished 3-8 overall and 1-7 in the Big 12.
Pittman traveled to Kansas for Christmas and ran into plenty of KU grads. The graduates told Pittman how excited they were that KU was finally relevant and facing his team in the bowl game.
Overall, Pittman is excited about the direction of KU’s program. He raved about Kansas head coach Lance Leipold’s ability to find players that fit his system and the foundation he has built. He called Leipold “a freaking great football coach.”
“I have so much high respect for him because he’s done it at every level,” Pittman said. “So obviously as far as his coaching staff and his expectations for his program and things of that nature, (it’s) outstanding.
“You can take a lot of coaches, and you name the school and you name four or five schools up here and they can have success because of the name of the school. Now, they may not be able to win a national championship, but they’re going to have success. Going into Kansas and having success, that takes a ball coach. And I just admire him. I admire him as a man.”
Regardless of that admiration, a win against Kansas would be pretty sweet.
“You go home at Christmas and, you know, you hear either, ‘KU’s going to stomp you,’ or, ‘You can’t let them beat us. I’ve got to live up here,’” Pittman said. “I mean, (winning is) kind of important to me, too.
“I know it’s important to everybody, but, you know, it’s important to me and our staff and our players. But yes, it’s fun, and especially against Kansas.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2022 at 6:50 PM.
