Is it time for a change?

I didn’t watch a second of the University of Arkansas’ football game against Auburn on Saturday, Nov. 11, but I know all I need to know from the final score.

Auburn won the game, 48-10, on the Razorbacks’ home field in Fayetteville. The loss was the seventh in Arkansas’ past eight games after a 2-0 start and dropped the Razorbacks to 1-6 in SEC play.

The loss also ramped up the speculation about Sam Pittman’s job security, with some sources saying the UA’s big-money boosters won’t come up with the necessary cash to buy out the remainder of Pittman’s contract. The head Hog is owed more than $20 million over the next four seasons. His buyout would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million.

On the other hand were separate sources saying that Pittman’s firing could come at any moment.

I’m not sure firing Pittman would improve Arkansas’ football program. This is not Chad Morris we’re talking about. Morris was incapable of leading a Division I college football program in the SEC, in my opinion.

Pittman, on the other hand, has demonstrated that he can lead a winning football team. He is, after all the same coach who guided the Hogs to a 9-4 record and a bowl victory in 2021. But he’s also the same coach whose teams have gone 10-13 since then.

The Hogs were not great in 2022, finishing with a 7-6 record after beating Kansas in the Liberty Bowl in triple overtime (after blowing a big lead in regulation). That Arkansas team lost four games by a combined total of nine points, starting with a 23-21 loss to Texas A&M in a game that now looks like a clear line of demarcation in Pittman’s tenure at Arkansas. The Razorbacks had won eight of their previous nine games — the only loss was 42-35 to Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Since that A&M game that seemed to turn on a single play, Arkansas has gone 7-12. And while the Razorbacks have lost several close games last season during that stretch, the losses to Mississippi State (sure, it was only 7-3 but it couldn’t have been much uglier) and Auburn (OK, that one sounds uglier even to someone who didn’t see it) seemed to drive home the point that the program is in decline.

Again, I’m not sure that firing Pittman will make a significant change in Arkansas’ football fortunes. And I understand that calling for someone to lose their job sounds less than compassionate.

But I know for certain that college football isn’t just a game. It’s also big business. And the way that business is played at the SEC level is this: You get an SEC head coaching job and you are paid millions of dollars, in exchange for which you either win games at an acceptable rate or you get fired and still get paid millions.

I also know for certain that when a decision is made to fire a head coach and pay him off, it’s not always a poor financial decision based on nothing more than school spirit. The reason coaches are paid so handsomely is because their universities can also realize a financial windfall from a successful football program. But the opposite can also be true. When ticket sales start to wane, when apathy sets in among a fan base, cutting your losses makes more sense.

I bought three tickets to Saturday’s game against Florida International, on the second row directly behind the Razorback bench, for $103. That can’t be good for Sam Pittman.

••• Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@CarrollCoNews. com.