Bama blasts Hogs to go 10-0 vs. SEC
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Alabama has been the dominant program in college football for more than a decade, and Sam Pittman has been working somewhere in the Southeastern Conference for much of that time.
After the top-ranked Crimson Tide buried his Arkansas Razorbacks 52-3 on Saturday, Pittman delivered a dose of what Alabama coach Nick Saban once famously referred to as “rat poison.”
“On tape, it’s the best Alabama team I’ve seen,” said the 59-year-old Pittman, 3-7 in his first season as head coach in Fayetteville after previously working as an SEC assistant at Tennessee (2012), Arkansas (2013-15) and Georgia (2016-19). “(Saban) is going to hate me for saying that. I think he calls that rat poison. But that’s how I believe. That’s the best squad I’ve seen. They’re hard to stop.”
That’s Pittman’s opinion. It’s a fact that Alabama has gone 10-0 against an all-SEC schedule, an unprecedented feat, heading into next Saturday night’s league championship game against Florida at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Tide are on track for the No. 1 seed and a return to the College Football Playoff after a one-year absence.
“One of the motivating factors was win 10 SEC games in a regular season, which has never been done before,” Saban said. “And obviously we wanted to play to a standard. We got started a little slow and as the game went on, we got better and better on defense and controlled the tempo on offense. All in all, I was really pleased. We got to play a lot of players.”
With the game tied at 3 late in the first quarter, DeVonta Smith returned a punt 84 yards for a touchdown as Alabama began a 28-point outburst that covered 11 minutes of game clock.
Running back Najee Harris scored consecutive touchdowns just 14 seconds apart in the second quarter, and Brian Robinson Jr.’s 1-yard plunge made it 31-3 with 6:43 left in the half. Robinson added a 4-yard touchdown run in the final minute for a 38-3 advantage at intermission.
Outside of his big play on special teams, it was a quiet day for Smith, who had three catches for 22 yards, but the senior receiver bolstered his surging case for Heisman Trophy consideration with that return.
“We gave up 76 yards early in the game, then we went for a good little stretch where they didn’t get a first down and we started getting momentum on offense,” Saban said. “The punt return was big.”