STILLWATER, Okla. — The box score for the Arkansas vs Oklahoma State game is one of the more deceiving you’ll ever see.
Despite out-gaining the No. 16 Cowboys by a whopping 263 yards, the Razorbacks came up short where it mattered the most in a 39-31 double overtime loss inside Boone Pickens Stadium.
With offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino calling the shots, Arkansas racked up 648 yards of offense on 93 plays, meaning it averaged 7.0 yards every time it snapped the ball.
The defense was just as good, limiting a potent Oklahoma State offense to only 385 total yards and 5.2 yards per play.
On paper, it was the kind of game you’d expect the Razorbacks to win more times than not.
In fact, ESPN stats wiz Bill Connelly has a metric that measures just that. Postgame win expectancy essentially takes a box score and spits out a percentage for how often a team would likely win given all of the statistics are the same.
According to that metric, Arkansas would have beaten Oklahoma State 86.2% of the time. That was the second-highest percentage for a defeated team in Week 2, behind only Nevada’s 91.3% in a loss to Georgia Southern.
“Arkansas Gonna Arkansas”
Best of Arkansas Sports was unable to research the historical significance of the Razorbacks out-gaining the Cowboys by 263 yards and still losing, but we were able to use the Sports Reference play index to find how many times a team gained at least 600 yards and allowed fewer than 400 yards in a loss.
Saturday marked just the eighth time it’s happened since 2000, and some Arkansas football fans may feel this is the latest instance of that particularly self-loathing adage, “Hogs gonna Hog,” coming to life.
Those folks should expand their interpretation of this saying to encompass the state as a whole, though.
The last team to “accomplish” such an unlikely loss was actually Arkansas State nearly seven years ago. The Red Wolves out-gained Troy 606-293 on Dec. 2, 2017, but still lost 32-25.
That means Arkansas and Arkansas State have found some common ground ahead of their historic first matchup in 2025, becoming brothers in a special kind of misery in the college football record books.
Dramatic Offensive Improvement
Most fans probably believed the Razorbacks would be much improved offensively this year with Bobby Petrino replacing Dan Enos, but even the most optimistic fans couldn’t have imagined it’d be this dramatic so early.
Yes, one of Arkansas’ games was against a terrible UAPB team, but it followed up that 687-yard performance with another 648 yards on the road against a veteran Oklahoma State defense.
Both of those marks rank inside the top 10 on the UA’s single-game list, checking in at No. 3 and No. 10, respectively.
The Razorbacks also rank second nationally in total offense with 667.5 yards per game. That’s nearly as many total yards they had through the first two games last season, when they had only 687 combined yards against Western Carolina and Kent State.
Through three games last year, Arkansas had 1,111 total yards. It has 1,335 yards through two games this season. Even if you add up Arkansas’ three top games from last season in terms of yards — Florida International (510), Florida (481) and LSU (426) — the total of 1,417 yards is barely more than the two-game total this year.
Arkansas also ranks second nationally in passing offense at 412.0 yards per game. Its 824 total passing yards is more than the 818 combined passing yards it had in its top three passing games last season — LSU (289), Western Carolina (274) and Florida (255).
On the ground, the Razorbacks are just 16th nationally at 255.5 yards per game, but they are tied with UCF for first nationally with 11 rushing touchdowns. That’s significant because they scored only nine rushing touchdowns over the 12 games in the entire 2023 season.
These statistics will likely level out some as Arkansas plays more games, but the improvement over last year is already evident.
Individual Milestones vs. Oklahoma State
With so much offensive production, it’s not surprising that a few players reached some key milestones against Oklahoma State.
Quarterback Taylen Green completed 26 of 45 passes for 416 yards, one touchdown and one interception. It was the most passing yards for an Arkansas player since Brandon Allen threw for 442 against Ole Miss in 2015 and it ranks fourth on the UA’s single-game list.
Throw in the 61 yards he added on 18 carries and he accounted for 477 total yards. (Take out three sacks that lost 28 yards and he would have eclipsed the 500-yard mark.)
“He’s a warrior,” Pittman said. “He works awful hard. … He’s our guy and obviously I’m sure he’d like to have some throws back, he’s like to have some decisions that he made back, but to have 500 yards against a good football team, I think we’ve got a good one there and he’ll continue to get better.”
His favorite target was wide receiver Andrew Armstrong, who reeled in 10 passes for 164 yards. He’s the Razorbacks’ first player to hit those marks since Treylon Burks, who had 179 yards against Alabama in 2021 and 10 receptions against Missouri in 2020.
Making his performance particularly impressive was the fact that it was Armstrong’s first game of the season, as he missed the opener with a hamstring injury that also limited him during fall camp.
“He just knows his frame,” Green said. “He knows what he’s good at and just the versatility that he has — whether it’s a deep ball, or whether it’s intermediate or short, I know if I put it in his range, he’s going to catch it. That’s what I like. A quarterback loves that in a receiver.”
On the ground, Ja’Quinden Jackson led the way with 149 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries. It was the most single-game rushing yards by an Arkansas player since Rocket Sanders ran for 232 against Ole Miss in 2022.
Jackson also had a pair of touchdowns in the opener against UAPB. He’s the first Arkansas player with multiple non-passing touchdowns in consecutive games since Alex Collins did it in 2014 against Nicholls State and Texas Tech.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to be on the field for the final play of the game, when Rodney Hill was stopped on fourth-and-1, because he was dealing with cramps.
“We didn’t know whether he could make it out there or back,” Pittman said. “Had a lot of cramps and they were everywhere, they were in his groin, in his hamstrings. He’s probably getting an IV right now because he’s going to go into full body cramp if we don’t watch out. I’m sure they’re taking care of him.”
Containing Ollie Gordon II
A major focus for Arkansas’ defense this week was containing Oklahoma State star running back Ollie Gordon II, who led the country in rushing last season.
While he did score the game-winning touchdown — and catch the ensuing two-point conversion — the Razorbacks were mostly successful.
They limited him to only 49 yards and the one score on 17 carries, meaning he averaged just 2.9 yards per carry. He also caught only two passes for 20 yards.
“We were trying to make him run east and west, not north and south,” Pittman said. “So a lot of our games and a lot of things we were doing were trying to kick him outside. We knew that if he ever got his shoulders turned on us, that he’d be… He broke 13 tackles last week and he probably broke a bunch today, as well. But that was our game plan on him.”
Lineup Changes for Arkansas Football
The Razorbacks kept their starting lineup mostly the same from Week 1 to Week 2, but did make one change on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, Andrew Armstrong returned from injury and replaced Isaac TeSlaa as the third starting wide receiver alongside Tyrone Broden and Isaiah Sategna. That was expected to happen as soon as he got healthy.
What was a bit of a surprise was Jaheim Singletary getting the nod over Marquise Robinson as the second cornerback opposite of Jaylon Braxton. When asked specifically about the position last Monday, Pittman told reporters, “I imagine we’ll start the same guys we did last week.”
Not only was Robinson sidelined, but he also never got in the game on defense. Kee’yon Stewart was the only cornerback who rotated in.
Last season, Robinson was a key part of the defense that helped South Alabama upset Oklahoma State, even intercepting a pass in the game. During fall camp, he was asked about returning to Stillwater this year and he predicted it was “going to be a domination.”
Those comments were heard in the Oklahoma State locker room, as quarterback Alan Bowman revealed to reporters after the game.
“It was on the bulletin board,” Bowman told reporters after the game. “I mean, we watched (it) before every unit meeting on the offense. We had it all scripted up. I can tell you exactly what word-for-word what he said, but he didn’t play us.
“We were kind of sad he didn’t, because I think we were prepared for him. We were ready to play him, but yeah, he didn’t play…. They didn’t dominate. No, they did not. And they lost.”
Travel Roster Notes for Arkansas vs Oklahoma State
The Razorbacks traveled 84 players for the Arkansas vs Oklahoma State game, which is down from the 92 who made the trip to Little Rock for the opener against UAPB. That decrease could be due to the Cowboys having very tight sidelines, so there isn’t as much room.
By our count, Arkansas had 72 scholarship players available Saturday. The 13 who didn’t travel include a pair of guys no longer on the team: long snapper Eli Stein and wide receiver Jaedon Wilson.
Another five are dealing with known injuries. Defensive back Jaden Allen (knee), linebacker Justin Logan (shoulder) and offensive linemen Zuri Madison (ACL) are true freshmen who will miss the season, while offensive linemen Luke Brown (knee) and Patrick Kutas (back) are out for an undetermined amount of time.
Of the remaining six, the most perplexing continues to be defensive back Miguel Mitchell, the transfer from Florida. He also didn’t travel to the UAPB game. When asked about it this week, Pittman said simply, “He’s just out for right now.”
The others are younger players buried on the depth chart: linebacker JuJu Pope, defensive back Christian Ford, defensive tackle JJ Hollingsworth, wide receivers Dazmin James and Zach Taylor.
Other Arkansas vs Oklahoma State Tidbits
- Arkansas’ team captains for Saturday’s game were linebacker Xavian Sorey Jr., tight end Luke Hasz, safety Jayden Johnson and offensive lineman Joshua Braun.
- For the second straight week, the Razorbacks won the pregame coin toss. Unlike in the opener, though, they deferred to the second half, so they opened the game on defense.
- Oklahoma State’s all-time sacks leader, Leslie O’Neal, was honored as the program’s fifth member of the Cowboy Football Ring of Honor during halftime. That’s notable because the two-time All-American graduated from Little Rock Hall and spurned the Razorbacks to play for the Cowboys back in the 1980s.
- According to research by Best of Arkansas Sports, Arkansas has now notched a “scorigami” in back-to-back games, as this was the first 39-31 score in program history. The 70-0 score against UAPB was also a program first.
- Among the announced crowd of 52,202 was former Arkansas basketball standout Devo Davis, who transferred to Oklahoma State this offseason after playing four seasons with the Razorbacks. It seems like he was received well by Arkansas fans:
See our latest here:
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