Sam Pittman graces the cover of Hooten's Arkansas Football again. And why not?
He had a winning season last year -- even if 7-6 isn't much to crow about -- and won a bowl game for the second time in three years as the University of Arkansas head football coach. He and Bret Bielema are the only coaches in program history to win their first two bowl games -- and for Pittman's sake, that's where the comparison should end. Bielema, now at Illinois, could not win a third postseason game in his fourth season and was searching for a job after his fifth.
A family member went shopping the other day and brought home a copy of Hooten's, of which brothers Chad and Chris passed the torch last year to a new publisher, Thomas Thrash, whom some remember as a quarterback in Kevin Kelley's days at Pulaski Academy. It should be a constant companion for any self-professed fan of Arkansas football this fall.
High schools raise the curtain Friday, Aug. 25 with what the Arkansas Activities Association calls Week Zero. Games on that date include Lake Hamilton home against Lakeside in the first game for new Rams coach Garren Rockwell. The Rams were defensively challenged often in a 2-7 season, the 13th at the school for retired coach Jared McBride, who deserves recognition for making Lakeside relevant again.
Russellville comes to Austin Field Sept. 1 while Lake Hamilton makes a Week 2 trip to Jonesboro. The Wolves hail from the 6A-West conference. Coach Tommy Gilleran says his team must retool defensively, no matter that the Wolves did not score against Greenwood or Benton in a 9-3 season. Greenwood and Pulaski Academy should be near the top.
The marquee game on opening weekend matches Benton and Bryant in the Salt Bowl at Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium. This meeting marks the first game for new Bryant coach Quad Sanders. In one of the most surprising offseason moves in years for an Arkansas prep team, coach Buck James jerked up his roots after five Class 7A championships at Bryant.
Not that he left the neighborhood or anything, resurfacing at Central conference rival Conway with Bryant making a Nov. 3 visit to Centennial Bank Field at John McConnell Stadium. James, with a 210-52 record in 21 seasons, winning another state title at Camden Fairview, built a program at Bryant virtually out of scratch but one that this state can put up against the best high school squads in a few other states.
Hot Springs is picked ahead of Lakeside in 5A-South, winning the city championship last year. Darrell Burnett's Trojans come off a 7-4 season and seek the program's first outright conference title since 2014. Hot Springs opens at Vilonia before playing Arkadelphia at home, the Trojans losing 29-28 on the road to the Badgers last year. The Week Four conference opener against Parkview at War Memorial Stadium is an early attention-getter, Brad Bolding's Patriots winning a close one at Hot Springs in a Thursday-night game last year.
Jessieville tries to reload, it hopes, after a 3-7 campaign that it was zapped three times at home. T.J. Burk won a state championship in 2006 quarterbacking for legendary former Lions coach Don Phillips, for whom the home stadium is named.
And then come the 8-man teams from Garland County: Cutter Morning Star, Fountain Lake and Mountain Pine. One reads that Fountain Lake, the last county school with an 11-man state champion in football, will step up again next year. Mountain Pine deserved an 8-man state title the AAA did not award in 2020. CMS has transformed Eagle Field into a fairly plush home ground complete with artificial turf; whether the Eagles challenge again on Friday nights in the fall, or how soon, is a larger question.
As departed friend Phil Skaggs liked to say in this space, let the games begin.