Sam Pittman has made the somewhat risky move of hiring a popular predecessor as an assistant coach, but said Thursday that early returns on working with Bobby Petrino have been positive.

Petrino, who won 34 games as Arkansas’ head coach from 2008-11, returned as offensive coordinator in November. He’s now tasked with helping not only save the Razorbacks’ offense, but also possibly Pittman’s job after a 4-8 collapse in 2023.

“It’s been great,” Pittman said during his appearance at SEC Media Days in Dallas. “… He loves the Hogs, he likes to win, he likes to score points, so it’s been great. I had Barry (Odom, former Missouri head coach who was Arkansas defensive coordinator from 2020-22) before that I could bump some head coaching questions off of.

“… It’s like a security blanket. I’ve got Bobby there, I had Barry there. … I’ll ask them a question, and I want their opinion and they know it, and we’ll agree on it or we won’t, but we’re both grown men. If we do, we do, and if we don’t, we don’t, and we’ll move on down the road. But that’s been very beneficial to me and I really like him and I have a lot of respect for him.”

Petrino was considered one of the top offensive minds in college football before he self-immolated his career in the spring of 2012. He was found to have been conducting an extra-marital affair with a football staffer, and was fired after lying about it to athletics director Jeff Long.

The 63-year-old Petrino has remained something of a football vagabond since, spending time as head coach at Western Kentucky, Louisville and Missouri State before he was hired as offensive coordinator at Texas A&M prior to the 2023 season. Things did not go well in College Station, as head coach Jimbo Fisher was fired in November and Petrino was not retained by new coach Mike Elko at the end of the season.

Pittman was asked how things might be different for Petrino at Arkansas after rumors Petrino and the famously controlling Fisher disagreed on how to run the Aggies’ offense. He said he will take a hands-off approach when it comes to his offensive coordinator, as he does with all of his staff.

“I’m not positive what happened over at A&M,” Pittman said. “Here’s what I know: I hire people, I give my opinion, but he’s the offensive coordinator. Travis (Williams), he’s the defensive coordinator and that’s his responsibility. Eric Mateos is my offensive line coach.

“Now, I’m the oldest (graduate assistant) in the country. I would want to work with me if I was an offensive coordinator, because I’m going to let you go get them. I’ve got my ideas and I’m going to tell him what I see, but I think if you asked Bobby and Travis and (special teams coordinator) Scott Fountain, they’d say ‘he gives me the freedom to run what I think is best.’ “I don’t know about A&M, but I just know that we’ve given (Petrino) the freedom to go score points.”

Pittman is firmly on the hot seat after the Razorbacks went just 1-7 in the SEC a year ago, leading many to postulate that he might be committing a bad career move by hiring a former Arkansas head coach to his staff. Despite his off-field failings, Petrino remains extremely popular in Fayetteville after winning double-digit games and playing in New Year’s Day bowls in 2010 and 2011.

Pittman, however, said he’s not concerned about being undermined by Petrino, fans, boosters or anyone else if things go poorly in 2024.

“I’m not worried about my job, I’m not worried about any of that,” Pittman said during an appearance on the SEC Network set. “I’m worried about winning games for Arkansas and that’s it. And if I think Bobby Petrino is the best guy I can get to do that for our school and our state, then I was damn sure going to do that. It was that easy.”

Arkansas opens the 2024 season in Little Rock Aug. 29 vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff.