Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman details plan for hip replacement surgery

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman detailed a timeline for hip replacement surgery during a news conference Monday.

Pittman, the fifth-year Arkansas coach, has a broken hip. It is an injury he has dealt with throughout the Razorbacks’ preseason practices and into the season.

He said he was informed approximately 135-140 days ago he would need hip replacement. That timeline indicates a late June diagnosis.

“It just went out,” Pittman said, “and so I found out I need to get a new hip. It was at a point in time where it was so close to the season starting that I just didn’t feel like I could do it. And as it’s gone on, it’s gotten sorer and sorer.”

Pittman said his broken hip has “bone-on-bone” pain.

“It is what it is: sore,” Pittman said. “But as soon as we get through with the Missouri game [Nov. 30], between that and the postseason, I’m going to get a new hip.”

The Razorbacks (5-4, 3-3 SEC) are one victory shy of reaching bowl eligibility. They have games against Texas, Louisiana Tech and the regular-season finale at Missouri upcoming.

“I think that I’ll be able to walk out of the surgery and…know that first week after the Missouri game is kind of a dead week for us,” Pittman said, “because the kids are in finals, or it’s the last week of school. And I wanted to have it where I could move around pretty good by the time that the [transfer] portal opened, because that’s very, very busy.”

The NCAA winter transfer portal window opens nine days following the Missouri game on Dec. 9 and will remain open until Dec. 28.

“That’s really the only time,” Pittman said of when to get the hip replacement surgery. “I just didn’t feel like I could get it done before the season and be effective.

“But it’s sore….You can’t ever get off of it. You can’t sit off of it, you can’t sleep off of it, obviously can’t walk off of it. Anybody that’s had a bone-on-bone hip knows that it’s irritable and it’s hard to sleep and those things.

“But I made it 130-something days of it, and I can make it another…whatever the number is.”

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