Pittman reunion thrills TE coach
FAYETTEVILLE — Nine years ago, Cody Kennedy began an email campaign that showed the kind of initiative and personality that is still opening doors today.
As he was wrapping up his career as an offensive lineman at Southeastern Louisiana in 2012, Kennedy knew he wanted to be a college football coach, but he had to get his foot in somebody’s door.
Kennedy sent out loads of emails, some of them to Will Hall, the second-year head coach at West Alabama. Many of his emails got no replies.
Eventually Hall, who had played quarterback at North Alabama in Kennedy’s hometown of Florence, Ala., got back to the guy who had been bombarding his inbox for several months.
That’s how Kennedy’s coaching career as a graduate assistant started. Six years later — after stops at West Alabama, West Georgia, North Carolina-Pembroke and a return to West Georgia — Kennedy got the
break that eventually would lead to his current position as tight ends coach at the University of Arkansas.
He got on as an offensive graduate assistant at Georgia in 2018, working with then-offensive line coach Sam Pittman.
“Sam Pittman, you go all across the country in this business and you’re not going to find very many like him,” Kennedy said. “He’s a great human being.
“He gave me that first opportunity, and I’m forever grateful for it. We maintained that relationship throughout that time, bounced ideas off each other, kind of weekly updates.”
Pittman has made four new coaching hires heading into his second season with the Razorbacks, two on each side of the ball. The way he connected with Kennedy at Georgia was all Pittman needed to know to bring him aboard, even if it was to coach a new position.
“I love the guy,” Pittman said. “When I was at Georgia, I got a lot of credit for recruiting some of the offensive linemen that he recruited. So I knew what type of person he was and what type of recruiter he is and what type of coach he was.
“So that was the easiest one of all of them, to be honest with you.”
Kennedy, 31, made two more stops between Georgia and Arkansas, one for a very short period of time.
First, he reconnected in 2019 with his mentor Hall, who was now offensive coordinator at Tulane for Coach Willie Fritz. After two productive offensive seasons with the Green Wave, Hall was hired as head coach at Southern Mississippi, and he announced Kennedy as his offensive line coach with the Golden Eagles in December.
That meant Kennedy had to part ways with the man who had given him his first big opportunity just weeks after joining him in Hattiesburg, Miss.
“That’s the tough thing about this game,” Kennedy said. “With the timing, would I have liked for it to be better and more clean? Yeah, I would. Do you always get that option in life? No, you don’t.
“I’m forever grateful to [Hall] and our relationship. He knew and had a hunch eventually, at some point in time, Coach Pittman would knock on the door, and I just didn’t know when. [Hall’s] on my Mount Rushmore of coaches that have impacted me through my career.”
Hall told NOLA.com in 2019 that Kennedy’s interview with him in 2012 made him a slam-dunk hire.
“Perfect fit,” Hall said then. “Anybody who met Cody knows you could drop that sucker off in Saudi Arabia and he could come back in four weeks and have 36 friends.”
Also on Kennedy’s figurative Mount Rushmore: Pittman and Sam Gregg, the current offensive line coach at Liberty University, who was Hall’s offensive line coach at West Alabama in 2013.
Kennedy’s regard for Pittman runs deep.
“What I learned most from Coach Pittman is how to treat people the right way,” Kennedy said. “Sometimes that gets lost a little bit in this business here along the way. He was a role model in that light, of how to treat people the right way.
“And I think that comes from him coming from where he did. Playing Division II ball, working his way up the ranks, traveling the country, coaching offensive line. You learn to treat people the right way. And I know that seems very simple, but sometimes people lose sight of that. Not just in this business, but all across the country.”
Pittman said Kennedy could benefit from working with tight ends, as he once did in an assistant coaching career that took him all over the country. Between stops as offensive line coach at Northern Illinois and Oklahoma, Pittman spent a season handling tackles and tight ends at Cincinnati in 1996 for Rick Minter.
“I thought it was a great learning experience for me, to learn more about the game other than just the front and the box on defense,” Pittman said. “I talked Cody, basically, into coming here and doing that for us. Outstanding person, outstanding recruiter.”
Pittman said Kennedy was the only person he considered for the position.
“I do want to say this, that we’ve had guys from the NFL, we’ve had guys from all over major conferences that have applied for jobs here at Arkansas, so it’s a very, very exciting job, exciting place, and the Hog is strong,” he said. “But with Cody, that was the guy and I wanted to hire.”
Kennedy said the transition from offensive line coach to tight ends coach made him sit up and evaluate the move. He noted that the tight end coaches for the AFC and NFC finalists this season — Buffalo’s Rob Boras, Green Bay’s Justin Outten, Kansas City’s Tom Melvin and Tampa Bay’s Rick Christophel — all had offensive line coaching in their backgrounds.
“I see it as a great opportunity to expand my knowledge in college football, getting to coach a different position group,” Kennedy said. “I’ve had a great amount of success coaching the offensive line, but it’s a very natural and seamless transition within the game of football to go from offensive line to tight ends.”
Kennedy said he feels comfortable recruiting all across the southeast.
“I’ve got connections all over at this point,” he said. “From the multiple places I’ve coached and multiple recruiting areas that I’ve had, I really feel comfortable in all those locations.”
Kennedy’s first-hand experience recruiting with Pittman was an eye-opener.
“Such an honest guy, and his delivery, and how he connected with these offensive linemen he recruited, and eventually he’s had multiple draft picks come off that Georgia offensive line while he was there,” Kennedy said. “I would have to pinch myself every day going to work there and working with those kids, as talented as they were.
“But we busted our tails on the recruiting trail and obviously that showed with the talent were able to secure there.”
Kennedy said he has met with every tight end on the Arkansas roster, and he called the unit an awesome, blue-collar group.
“You’ve got an older guy in [Blake] Kern who has come along late in his career, where it’s still new for him a little bit,” he said. “So he’s still extremely motivated to add into that and fulfill that role even more.
“Then you’ve got guys coming through the ranks, the Hudson Henrys, the younger crew and younger nucleus there that are also building and getting more comfortable and more confident in their roles.”
Kennedy said the tight ends have to play with the confidence that they can change the game on every snap, whether on a blocking assignment or a pass route.
“It’s the Swiss Army knife of the offense,” Kennedy said. “The more the tight end can contribute, the more highpaced and high-functioning the offense can be.
“If you have tight ends that can stretch the field vertically and impact the passing game, that puts a lot of linebackers in conflict on coverage. If they’re able to come into the run game and into the box and create blocks off the backside or leading on blocks on the perimeter, that can obviously change the run game. So, they’re able to impact the game in a lot of different ways.”