Arkansas football continues its 2024 season against No. 17 Oklahoma State in just four days at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy spoke to the media Monday to preview the matchup.
Oklahoma State opened its season with a 44-20 win over reigning FCS national champs South Dakota State. Star running back Ollie Gordon II rushed for 126 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries, while seventh-year quarterback Alan Bowman completed 25-of-34 throws for 267 yards and three scores.
Last season, Oklahoma State finished with a 10-4 (7-2 Big 12) overall record including wins over Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State and Texas A&M in the 2023 Texas Bowl.
This will mark the 47th meeting between the two teams, and Arkansas leads the series 30-15-1. The last meeting came back on Sept. 20, 1980, when then-No. 17 Arkansas secured a 33-20 win over the Cowboys at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
Here's everything Gundy had to say about head coach Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks:
On playing against SEC size:
Gundy: "When you play a team in the SEC, you're going to play girth. You're going to play massive guys that have a lot of size and are physical in the box, and they have a really good geographic location for producing bigger, tight bodies like that. So, that's where I mentioned we, we need to make good strides between last week and this week in order to block a completely different front than what we saw last week."
On Sam Pittman:
Gundy: "He's been at Oklahoma, but I think when he was at Oklahoma, I was at Maryland or something. I can't remember. I had seen him before, know people that know him moreso than me. He's a lot older than me. I say that jokingly. People that I know that know him speak very highly of him as a person and a football coach. So, I've just been more aware of him and not really known him."
On the Arkansas-Oklahoma State series:
Gundy: "I think the series is good for reasons...because you're going to want to play quality non-conference schedules now so the committee will have respect for that, and this is a good matchup because it's two hours and 45 minutes away and you have a lot of crossover with people.
"There's a lot of Arkansas people that can live here and there's a lot of Oklahoma people that have migrated there with Walmart and all of that stuff. So, I think it's good."
On Arkansas QB Taylen Green:
Gundy: "You got to have a guy for him. When you are competing against a guy that has the ability to run, you have to take that into account in your structure of defense and the style of play. So, we have plenty of ways to do that because we see them quite a bit now, it's just a matter of being disciplined, make sure somebody has responsibility for the quarterback."
On Arkansas' talent level:
Gundy: "The running back. He's a guy that can make plays. I've scanned through over the summer and they have four or five games they played last year that they could have won. So, I don't know what their record was last year, but it looked like to me they could have won eight games pretty easy in obviously a very difficult conference.
"They played against good teams and lost single-digit points late in the fourth quarter. So, this team that we're playing Saturday, regardless of what anybody in the country may think, will be as talented as anybody we play all year, in my opinion."
On Arkansas OC Bobby Petrino:
Gundy: "He's got a system he believes in. I think from a distance, and (I've) crossed paths with him some and seen crossover tapes on him for years, he's got a system that he's going to stay in and then he's going to vary it a little bit based on what the strengths are for his skill players which is what he's referring to, would be my guess.
"So, a comparison would be like what we've done here the last 15 years on offense. We don't get away from our core system on offense, but it varies based on who our quarterback is, what kind of a threat we have outside and who our running back is.
"So, we look a little different now that we looked when Mason Rudolph was playing here and that was because of Mason and the skill we had on the perimeter compared to what we have with Ollie (Gordon II) right now. So, I'd say that would be a pretty good illustration of what his system is in my opinion, I could be way off, and what he's trying to accomplish."
