ATHENS — Arkansas coach Sam Pittman built his sterling reputation by being a straight shooter and he remained in form after a 37-0 loss to Georgia on Saturday afternoon.

“We’ve got a good football team,” Pittman said minutes after his No. 8-ranked Razorbacks were humbled by the No. 2-ranked Bulldogs between the hedges. “Georgia was a helluva lot better than us today.”

Pittman recruited many of the Georgia offensive linemen and helped lure some of the UGA running backs that steamrolled the Arkansas defense to the tune of 273 yards rushing on 57 carries.

“It’s one of those game plans where you go ‘Aw heck, they’re going to come right at us,’ " said Pittman, whose team invites it with their base 3-3-5 alignment. “They were able to do that. They rotated a lot of guys in there, a lot of kids played well for them up front.

“You know, the line can be really good, but their running backs are bought into the same bully-ball type stuff that Coach Smart is bought into.”

Arkansas knocked off then-No. 15 Texas by a 40-21 count earlier this season and beat then-No. 7 Texas A&M 20-10 last week.

Pittman made it clear Georgia is a level above either of those programs.

“They have, to this point, by far the best football team we’ve played,” Pittman said. “They’re big, they’re physical. Kirby had his team ready and I didn’t, that’s the bottom line.

“A lot of mistakes in the game, but the bottom line is we’re just not where we need to be physically yet, because they dominated us on both sides of the ball,” Pittman said.

“We came in here wanting to start fast, take their crowd out of the game, and the opposite happened. It put us in a hole and we never could climb out of it because of their physicality.”

Pittman made it clear no one needs to feel sorry for his Razorbacks, however.

“We’re not going to have a problem regrouping — we won four games in a row, beat a 15-ranked team, beat a 7-ranked football team,” Pittman said. “Everything we’re trying to get accomplished this year, nothing was lost on today’s game.

“We still have an opportunity to get back and play Georgia again if we can win out on our side. Our pride got crushed. Our ego got crushed. But, it’s one ballgame against a team on the East. We’re still right where we need to be on the West.”