Bret Bielema Dragged His Players To An Assistant Coach’s House To Beg Him Not To Leave For UGA

SteveHolt10 years ago

There are a lot of weird college football stories I’ve shared this season, but this one takes the cake.

Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema dragged his offensive players to their offensive line coach’s house in a last-ditch attempt to keep him from taking a job at Georgia. This strange move at keeping a coach on staff is something you’d only find a guy like Bret Bielema doing.

From USA Today:

Not so for offensive line coach Sam Pittman. All that Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema had from Pittman was his word. And until this weekend, that seemed to be enough.

According to Gridiron Now, Bielema told reporters Saturday, “(Pittman) kind of always made the comment that, ‘You don’t have to worry about me going. You can set the buyout wherever you want it,’ ” Bielema said. “I just believed it, and obviously it didn’t come true.”Pittman has officially been hired onto new Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s staff, but before that happened, Bielema pulled out all the stops to stop Pittman from going. That included taking the Razorback players Pittman coached to Pittman’s house on Friday in a last-ditch effort to keep him.

“I think when you’re dealing with 19-, 20- and 21-year-old kids, they’re going to be emotional,” Bielema told reporters. “Some were mad, sad, sad then mad. It’s a part of the job no one wants to talk about, and Sam, because of the way he recruits and the way he handles people — until this matter — had been very personal.”

Damn, that reeks of bitterness.

Is anyone going to argue that Arkansas is an equal job to Georgia? Of course not. Sure it’s in the SEC, but Arky is more on the lines of Mississippi State and South Carolina than it is with Georgia, Florida and Alabama. So, it makes total sense that a position coach would make a “lateral” move to a better school, because, in a lot of aspects, it’s not lateral at all. At the end of the day, living in Athens, Ga., is a hell of a lot better than living in Fayetteville, Ark. Especially if you’re a football coach.

On Twitter, Pittman refuted Bielema’s statement that he refused to meet with his players before skipping town.

There you have it, coaches. If you’re going to join Bret Bielema’s staff, be prepared to face a dozen or so angry 20-year-olds before you think about leaving for a different job..

[via USA Today]

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