Buddies to square off
Vols offensive coordinator Chaney, Pittman share bond.
FAYETTEVILLE — An unexpected and fortuitous meeting outside the restroom at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio in early 2012 helped set Sam Pittman on the path that led him to the head coaching position at the University of Arkansas.
It was there, at the annual American Football Coaches Association convention, that a jobless Pittman bumped into his old friend Jim Chaney, who was in his first stint as offensive coordinator at Tennessee.
Pittman, who had been associate head coach and offensive line coach at North Carolina, was let go along with the rest of the Tar Heels’ coaching staff the month before the convention, and he was looking for work.
“I was going into the restroom, and he was coming out and he said, ‘Hey, I want to talk to you,’ ” Pittman related on his Monday video conference. “He said, ‘We’re going to lose our line coach, and I’d like you to come work with me at Tennessee.’ And I did.”
Eight years later, the longtime buddies will square off on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Reynolds Razorback Stadium when Pittman’s Razorbacks (2-3) host the Tennessee Volunteers (2-3), where Chaney is now serving his second stint as offensive coordinator.
The friendship between the two small-town, small-college guys nearly got started in earnest 40 years ago in 1980, the year Pittman graduated from Grove (Okla.) High and Chaney graduated from Holden (Mo.) High.
Pittman has talked often in public about being sent to the B-team group of prospects at Lou Holtz’s Razorback football camps in the late 1970s, and a little bit about his time as a defensive lineman for the Pittsburg State (Kan.) Gorillas. He’s talked much less about the time he and Chaney almost became defensive line mates at Central Missouri State.
“I actually signed there as well, but Jim Chaney is a Central Missouri State Mule,” Pittman said. “I signed with Central Missouri State, too. He looks much older than I do, but we both graduated the same year from high school.
“So I’ve known him. We both recruited St. Louis at different times, and we’d get together and go out and, obviously, go eat.”
Pittman’s self-deprecating humor knows no bounds.
“I signed with the Mules, but they were NCAA D-II,” Pittman said. “Pittsburg State was NAIA D-I, so I could get out of my signing deal. Honestly, Warrensburg, Missouri, was too far from home for me. So was Pittsburg State. It was 70 miles from my house. But I decided to go ahead and go anyway.”
Pittman and Chaney hit it off on the recruiting trail as they came up through the coaching ranks.
“In the coaching profession, you just meet people that you like,” Pittman said. “He was at Purdue at the time. We had common [bonds] … both small-town kids.
“We had a lot of common interests. I respected him deeply as a coach and as a man. We went out and had a good time and got to know each other better. That’s how it started.”
Their first reunion at Tennessee in 2012 on Derek Dooley’s staff didn’t last long, as Dooley was fired at the end of the year, giving Chaney a one-game interim head coach opportunity that resulted in a 37-17 win over Kentucky. But as fate would have it, Chaney and Pittman came as kind of a package deal to join Bret Bielema’s offensive staff at Arkansas in 2013. Chaney left two years later and spent a season at the University of Pittsburgh, then reunited with Pittman at Georgia for a three-year run starting in 2016.
Tennessee Coach Jeremy Pruitt brought Chaney on board during his second season in 2019, which brings the pair to this meeting.
Pittman knows just how Chaney wants to build his unit with the Volunteers.
“Jim is an offensive line coach,” Pittman said. “Jim taught me a lot about offensive line play, so he wants to run the football, and he believes — I don’t want to speak for him, but I’ve been with him at three schools — that running the football and physical play is how you win in the SEC.
“As you look at their team now, they’re built around that offensive line. Big, physical, five-star offensive linemen, and he’s turning around and handing the football off. And if you’re not able to stop it, he’ll never throw a pass. I mean, he just won’t.
“He’s trying to win the game, he’s trying to beat you up, and that’s what he’s been every place I’ve ever been with him. I really don’t see any difference in his philosophy watching all their games this season.”
Pittman had a strong track record already in place before the Butch Davis regime at North Carolina short-circuited due to an academic scandal, with interim coach Everett Withers finishing out the 2011 season. He would have been snatched up by some knowledgeable head coach that winter, but he’s happy he bumped into his buddy Chaney.
“I was very fortunate that he recommended that Coach Dooley hire me at Tennessee, because I didn’t have a job and Tennessee’s a really good place,” Pittman said. “I was able to do that and of course come to Arkansas, which certainly was beneficial to me as you look at me now.”
Pruitt is very well aware of the connection between Pittman and his hand-picked offensive coordinator.
“I never worked with Sam,” said Pruitt, who transitioned out of Georgia and back to Alabama between the 2015 and 2016 seasons, just as Pittman was joining Kirby Smart’s Georgia staff. “We just kind of missed each other. I’ve known him for a pretty good while.
“I have a ton of respect for him as an offensive line coach. Really, really good person. Now that he’s been at Arkansas, we’ve talked on the phone a couple of times. I really enjoyed it.
“Of course, him and Jim’s relationship and familiarity with each other and a lot of people within Knoxville that have talked about him, [he’s] a very likable guy. I think he’s doing a really, really good job. You can see it. His team is playing hard and playing together. I think he’s doing a great job.”
Pittman said he and Chaney typically talk on a weekly basis, but not this one.
“Not that it matters,” Pittman said. “I mean, he’s not going to tell me anything, and I’m certainly not going to tell him anything. I love the guy. He’s a good friend of mine.”
For one week, Pittman and Chaney will let their friendship rest on the sideline, then the small-town guys will resume cracking on and cracking up each other by phone.