By Elizabeth Bunnell

After an unexpected loss to BYU, Arkansas football head coach Sam Pittman deactivated his X, formerly known as Twitter, profile leaving fans shocked. As a state with no professional baseball, football or basketball team, the Razorbacks are the team of Arkansas. Therefore, when a season is going poorly fans often take criticism, or even bullying, to social media.

Former Arkansas defensive end Jake Bequette became a trailblazer in the online bashing of the head football coach. Bequette shared numerous tweets criticizing the football program and coaching staff. Oct. 10 Bequette posted, “Why did Hunter Yurachek sign Pittman to a massive contract extension after one decent season? We weren’t going to lose Pittman to another top school. Why else would you give him that amount of money — because Sam’s a nice guy?” Bequette posted many other tweets calling out Pittman’s salary, recruiting tactics and personality, calling him soft for deleting the social media app.

“I believe that there are times where people forget that coaches and players are still human beings when they start to talk about them. Also, it’s much easier to criticize these guys when behind a screen,” sophomore electrical engineering major Evan Chance said. “Losing games is part of the sport and Arkansas fans just hate losing and immediately just start pointing fingers. Pittman is a great coach and a good guy, but he is still human and makes mistakes and loses games.”

Sept. 20, X user @bigcontentguy posted, “sam pittman deleting his twitter is hilarious. how are you supposed to coach in the SEC if you can’t even take criticism from online trolls such as myself.” Many similar tweets filled the X feed also including comments about Pittman’s appearance. 

“I believe that fans can criticize coaches and players, especially in Arkansas, because college sports makes fans really engaged and they have a lot of pride,” Chance said. “Bashing someone’s character and job isn’t the way, and also at the end of the day, the coaches and players are getting paid millions of dollars and they have gifted talent. We are just fans who watch them play. They know more than us and are much better than us at the sports they play in.”

Coaches often use social media as a part of the recruiting process. They will post videos of them in the locker room after a big win or post videos of them showing their facilities to attract future players. With over 156,000 followers on the app, Pittman deleting his account sparked debate on whether he had a right to remove himself from social media. 

“I think he’s justified in doing it. A lot of people think he’s upset that people are trash talking him on social media, but I think sometimes social media can become a distraction so maybe he’s trying to take that away,” sophomore anthropology major Caroline Hatcher said. “There can be multiple reasons for people deactivating their social media accounts, it doesn’t have to be just because he’s upset that people are mad at him.”

Oftentimes people exposed to the public eye are expected to embrace online criticism or hate because “it’s part of the territory.” 

Another X user @bill_spradley shared this tweet on Sept. 25, “I’ve supported Sam Pittman up to this point but deleting his twitter account and whining about criticism is a bad sign to me…we’ll see… we need to beat Texas A&M…” Arkansas lost to Texas A&M, 34-22, Sept. 30. 

“I feel like coaches and players know what they’ve gotten themselves into, especially like us at a big SEC school. I feel like the fans have the right to critique players. They spend money to go to the games or go to the school. Fans are expecting a good product out of what’s been hyped up all off season,” Hatcher said.

Hatcher explained the Razorbacks have not performed as well as she had hoped at this point in the season. With Pittman’s break from social media, Hatcher says she wants to see better disciplined players with regards to penalties and better results on the field. 

“This football season has definitely been a disappointment. Everyone had huge expectations, but it all fell through with the first loss against BYU. It’s disappointing to see us be out-coached and out-played when we have a lot of talent,” Chance said. “But I still have hope in Pittman and what he could do for this program.”

Pittman coached a 9-4 season in 2021, defeating rivals A&M, LSU, and Mizzou and secured a win at the Outback Bowl. In 2022  the team had a 7-6 record and barely managed to defeat Kansas in the Liberty Bowl. Many fans question whether Pittman’s coaching peaked in the 2021 season.

With four games left, four more wins are required to become bowl eligible. After a six game loss streak, Arkansas will face the Florida Gators, Saturday, Nov. 4.