FAYETTEVILLE -- Sam Pittman sensed the excitement was too sparse and the playbook was too large when he discussed the firing of offensive coordinator Dan Enos at his Monday press conference.
Pittman fired Enos on Sunday, the day after the Razorbacks amassed 200 total yards in a 7-3 loss to unheralded Mississippi State to cap a six-game losing streak strewn with sub-par offensive showings.
"We've lost our spirit and there's a lot to be said about that," Pittman said.
"I think a lot of coaching has to do with enthusiasm, spirit, wanting to run through the wall for different people. We just never really had that on the offensive side of the ball. If you look at it defensively, there's a lot of that there."
The Razorbacks rank last in the SEC with 267.2 total yards per game in conference play and 12th in scoring with 19.4 points per game.
Pittman said he had been considering making a move at offensive coordinator for some time and the vibe before Saturday's game only strengthened that thought.
"You can tell from the way we took the field on Saturday it was like ... I can remember being on the headset going 'What are we doing?' I mean, it was almost like a 'Bum, bum, bum, bum-ba-dum,' " Pittman hummed, starting a few bars of a funeral march.
"And we were in the game the entire game. It just didn't feel like it."
Pittman said he shared in the responsibility of the offensive players not being "as motivated to play as I have seen in the past."
Pittman said receivers coach Kenny Guiton would now assume the role of quarterbacks coach as well as offensive coordinator and play caller. Derek Kief, who had been in the position of senior quality control for offense, will take over the wide receivers room.
"I know he's been really good at handling his room and that's a guy that's respected," Pittman said of Guiton. "He has a lot of motivation. He was excited when I talked to him about it. The guys in the room were excited for Kenny.
"I thought about it a lot Saturday night, which way I was gonna go ... and bringing somebody in from the outside right now didn't make a lot of sense to me. Simply because, to me, that's more of giving up on the season, and that is not what we're doing. We're just trying to make a change hopefully get our kids to play a little faster and tougher and things of that nature."
Pittman was asked if he would be more involved in offensive game planning.
"All of it," he said. "I mean, it's my butt on the line. It's all of us. I don't worry so much about losing my job. I worry so much about losing the building's job.
"You know, we've got buyouts and all that kind of stuff. I don't want the buyout. I want to win. I'm not saying I'm the know-all answer guy, but I damn sure need to get involved more, and that's something I'll do."
The Razorbacks rank 119th nationally in total offense with 305.9 yards per game, 114th in rushing (109.0), 102nd in passing (196.9) and 82nd in scoring (26.5).
Pittman said some of his suggestions, such as moving the pocket more frequently with quarterback KJ Jefferson, were not being implemented on game days.
"We didn't do it," he said. "We did it in practice, we just didn't do it [on game day.]"
For an example, Pittman said there were too many drop-back passes against Mississippi State, when Jefferson was sacked four times to bring his season total to 31.
"I think we threw 29 pocket passes on Saturday, and that number has got to be closer to 8 to 10," Pittman said. "I think we can move the pocket and do some things where we're not sitting back there all the time. I talked about 29 drop-back passes in a game is hard to protect for us right now, so we can't do that.
"It could be some gap protections, it could be some roll protections or it could be some nakeds, things that KJ can get out on the edge and have run and pass opportunities."
Pittman said the offensive coaching staff was working up scripts on Monday for upcoming walkthroughs and that Guiton would call the plays for practices on Tuesday through Thursday of this week.
Guiton, 32, a former quarterback at Ohio State, has never called plays in a career that started as a graduate assistant at Houston in 2015 and featured stops at Louisiana Tech and Colorado State before he joined Pittman's second staff in 2020.
Guiton's original thought was he would feel more comfortable on the sideline on game days, Pittman said, but his positioning on Saturdays is still to be determined.
Kief, a former receiver at Alabama (2014-18) who played on two national championship teams with the Crimson Tide, is from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was previously a graduate assistant at Maryland and on-field assistant at Towson State as wide receivers coach in 2022.
Pittman said he typically provides suggestions during the week to defensive coordinator Travis Williams and his staff, but for now he'll direct his full attention to helping on offense.
"Trav and them can do that and I'll just strictly stay on offense and see if we can't help that out a little bit more," Pittman said.
Pittman said he's told the offensive personnel that Enos' departure does not automatically solve the team's production issues.
"I mean, hell, we've got offensive line issues, back issues, running route issues, tight end issues," Pittman said. "Dan took the brunt of it on that, but we all haven't been coaching as well as we have in the past. We haven't. Maybe it was that you have to coach a little bit more in a fast-paced type [scheme]. I don't know what the reason was. I wish I did. We'd have had it fixed by now."