A pivotal Week 2 showdown sees Arkansas travel to Stillwater, Okla., hoping to pull off an upset of the No. 17 Cowboys.
Both teams are 1-0 with FCS wins, but there isn’t much to compare. Arkansas drilled one of the worst teams in the FCS 70-0, while Oklahoma State knocked off the two-time defending FCS champs, South Dakota State, in a 44-20 finish. The Cowboys went 10-4 a year ago and are among the most experienced teams in the country, with 20 full- or part-time starters returning.
The Razorbacks are clear underdogs against a team likely to vie for the Big 12 title, but they may have an advantage in a very important part of the game.
A Resume Mismatch in Arkansas vs Oklahoma State
Based on coaching resumes alone, the Razorbacks have a massive advantage on offense.
Arkansas offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino’s resume stands for itself: head coach of the Falcons, Louisville (twice), Arkansas, Western Kentucky and Missouri State. He has also been an offensive coordinator at Auburn and Texas A&M before this season.
On the other side, Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Bryan Nardo boasts a resume that seems very thin for a power conference coordinator. He’s in his second season after being hired from Division II Gannon University. Outside of a stint as a GA at Ohio, Gannon has no other FBS experience and his lone FCS experience was as a linebackers coach at Youngstown State for two seasons. All other experience, including all of his prior coordinator experience, came at the Division II level.
Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy explained the unusual hire last year by pointing to Nardo’s experience running a defense based around three-down linemen, noting that it’s very hard to find high-major college coaches who use a lot of three-down looks outside of third-and-long (former Arkansas DC and current UNLV coach Barry Odom would be one of those).
With Nardo just one game into his second season, it’s still too early to tell if Gundy’s desire to buck defensive trends is going to pay off. The Cowboys were solid on defense a year ago, but they have a gaping weakness that could leave them vulnerable to Petrino’s air attack.
Indeed, that’s one of at least two areas that may keep Gundy and his staff awake at night when preparing for Arkansas this week.
(READ NEXT: Petrino Hints at Stiffer Tests to Come in 1st Interview after UAPB Beatdown)
The Big Play Battle
Nardo’s three-down front keeps linebackers and slot defenders near the line of scrimmage, creating a bunch of different pressure looks. The result is often chaos: the Cowboys were among the nation’s best teams at tackling runners behind the line of scrimmage and ranked 21st in the country with 23 forced turnovers. If the offense can’t figure out what they’re doing defensively, trouble could follow.
But the chaos the Cowboys force works both ways. The aggressive looks leave Oklahoma State’s secondary in a tough spot, defending 1-on-1 with limited help. Few teams in the nation gave up more big pass plays in 2023 than Oklahoma State.
Last year, the average completed pass gained 14.6 yards against the Cowboy defense, which ranks 128th out of 133 FBS teams. They were 132nd in the percentage of opponent pass attempts that gained at least 20 yards. And their run defense wasn’t significantly better at preventing big plays, ranking 104th in percentage of opponent rush attempts that gained at least 10 yards.
Oklahoma State’s aggressiveness will force its secondary to make a lot of open-field tackles. Veteran safety Trey Rucker recorded 15 tackles in the opener and had 62 solo tackles last season, nearly doubling up Arkansas team leader Al Walcott (34). Missed tackles by the back end can often lead to touchdowns.
The Cowboys return four of five starters in their secondary, but they didn’t make many moves to shore it up this offseason, and among their few lost starters is cornerback DJ McKinney, who surprisingly bolted for Deion Sanders and Colorado after last year.
The statistical trend from last year carried over into the Cowboys’ opener against South Dakota State. Despite a decent performance overall against a strong FCS squad, the Cowboys allowed a 40-yard rush and pass completions of 60, 33, 21 and 21, all occurring well before garbage time. In their standard fashion, they also notched an interception (which they cashed into a touchdown), got decent pressure on the quarterback and shut down the run game outside of that 40-yarder. They allowed 388 yards of total offense, with most of it (264) coming through the air.
Cornerback Cam Smith was a frequent victim, including on this long touchdown where, as usual, he had no safety help over the top:
If you recognize the route concept, that’s because it’s “Mills,” a Steve Spurrier specialty that is actually one of the staples of the Petrino playbook.
It’s a Post over a Square-In route, where the Square-In (a medium-depth route that features a 90-degree cut to the middle of the field) baits the safety to jump it, leaving the cornerback alone on a deep post over the top:
This play was a regular feature of Arkansas 2008-11 offense, with Cobi Hamilton’s 80-yard touchdown as the first half expired in the 2010 LSU game standing out as the best example of hitting the Post on Mills.
Check that out at 1:22 here:
A year ago, this matchup would spell major trouble for a Dan Enos offense, as it struggled to deal with pressure and did not generate enough big plays to sustain anything offensively. But Petrino has made a career out of generating big plays, and although his offenses have been susceptible against a strong pass-rush (see: Drew Sanders’ “Come to Poppa” moment vs. Missouri State), his efforts to fix that included landing Taylen Green, who over the last two seasons at Boise State has been among the nation’s elite quarterbacks at escaping pressure, with just 12% of pressures against him becoming sacks, per Pro Football Focus.
Can Arkansas Football Pull Off the Upset?
Big plays are a common way to pull upsets. An otherwise evenly matched game can be broken open by a few big plays, and that’s what Arkansas should probably be betting on.
If the Hogs can avoid turnovers and light up the Cowboys’ secondary through the air, they can probably generate enough offense to be competitive.
Whether that will be enough to win depends on how the Razorback defense does against Ollie Gordon II and a dangerous Oklahoma State offense. Fortunately for the Hogs, the Cowboys have the same Achilles’ heel on this side of the ball: in this case, it’s a lack of explosive plays that could prove concerning.
With seventh(!)-year senior quarterback Alan Bowman at the helm, the Cowboys do the things that experienced teams should. They don’t turn it over (none in the opener) and they don’t commit many penalties (only one).
However, Bowman, while accurate, isn’t exactly a gunslinger. Oklahoma State ranked 91st in the FBS in yards per completion last season, and their passing game is mostly used to set up their run game.
Despite Gordon’s status as an elite rusher, Oklahoma State isn’t particularly run-heavy. The Cowboys ranked just 67th in the FBS in rushing yards per game a year ago (155.8). Gordon dominated team carries, recording 285 rushes last year (20.3 attempts per game), and no other Cowboy averaged more than four per game. However, his 6.1 yards per carry last year is the reason defenses will key on him.
Selling out to stop the run isn’t a bad idea. South Dakota State loaded the box and asked Bowman to beat them. Gordon rushed 27 times for 104 yards (just 3.9 per carry), and Oklahoma State’s inability to open larger holes for their star back could be a concern. However, Bowman ultimately delivered after a slow start, recording completions of 58 and 22 yards in the second half as the Cowboys pulled away.
For the Razorbacks, “net explosive plays” might be a stat to watch. Can the offense hit some big pass plays, while preventing the Cowboys from doing the same? If so, there could be an upset brewing in Stillwater.
***
See our latest on Arkansas vs Oklahoma State here:
Adam Ford is the author of the advanced stats-themed blog Fayette Villains and posts on X as @AdamFord92.
***
More coverage of Arkansas football from BoAS…
