Gundy pleased Oklahoma State didn’t panic after Arkansas landed punches early

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

It was definitely a tale of two halves – and two overtimes – Saturday afternoon in the first college gridiron meeting in 44 years between Arkansas and Oklahoma State.

The first half was one Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy will try to forget and the second one likely one he will always remember.

But in the end, with the help of three Razorback turnovers, host Oklahoma State rallied from 14-0 first quarter and 21-7 halftime deficits to down Arkansas 39-31 in two overtimes in Stillwater.

“Our players got out of position some, but I thought through particular the first quarter and a half that had better concepts and better scheming than we did,” Gundy said.

“But at halftime, our coaches did a fantastic job with the adjustments that we made and our players were really good about absorbing information, not panicking and not pointing fingers, getting back out on the field, executing and playing much better obviously.”

Oklahoma State (2-0) won despite giving up 648 yards (416 passing and 232 rushing of total offense to Arkansas (1-1) while having 385 total yards (326 passing, 59 rushing) of its own.

The Razorbacks – who lead the series 29-15-1 – entered Cowboys’ territory on 8 of its 11 possessions in the first game in the series in 44 years.

The last meeting was a 33-20 Arkansas win in Little Rock when Lou Holtz was coaching the Razorbacks and former Razorback player Jimmy Johnson was head coach of the Cowboys.

The visitors – who had won the last five games between two programs – had 7 penalties for 71 yards while the hosts had 6 for 60.

“I’m glad we won that,” Gundy said. “The only thing I can say statistically was that we won the turnover margin, obviously we won the penalties and we were really good in overtime on both sides of the ball.”

Gundy thought his team’s culture helped pull it through.

“I know everybody gets tired of hearing that, but our culture allows us to function in critical times,” Gundy said. “ Times when most people panic, we don’t panic. We take advantage of it and stay on the course.

“What does winning a game like this do for this team? We can get a lot of things out of it. One, there’ll be a lot of good coaching on video. There’s a lot of mistakes that we made.

“Coaches make mistakes, as I said earlier in the game, my job is to evaluate everything equal and they out coached us, certainly in the first quarter, but they can understand if they stay the course, don’t panic, take information, make adjustments, then you can always figure out a way to win. Give yourself a chance.”

Oklahoma State tailback and Heisman Trophy candidate Ollie Gordon, who rushed for over 1,700 yards last season, was limited throughout most of the afternoon with just 17 carries for 49 yards in the contest.

But Gordon did come up big in the end by scoring on a 12-yard pass reception and a two-point conversion for what proved to be the game-winning points.

Oklahoma State quarterback and seventh-year senior Alan Bowman was 27 of 48 passing for 326 yards and a TD to wideout Brennan Pressley (9 catches, 91 yards).

”They used a couple of concepts to slow us down in the running game and we should have gone to the pass quicker,” Gundy said, “even though we had a couple of drops and Bowman misfired early in the game on at least three play that would have given us big plays win the game.

“…We got beat up pretty good in it (running game), but we needed to get to the pass quicker. There’s an extra guy there, and those are things we talked about…We’re not going to be able to get away with this much more. We’re going to have to get better, we’re going to have to get to 4.2

Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green was 26 of 45 passing for 416 yards passing with a touchdown – a 43-yard scoring toss to Luke Hasz that tied the game 28-28 – and rushed 18 times for 61 yards.

Green did throw an interception that Kale Smith returned 73 yards for a score when Arkansa was on the verge of going up 21-0.

OSU edge rusher Collin Oliver hit Green as he threw the pass with Oliver hurting his knee on the play and likely out for the season per Gundy.

“I think that he’s done for the year,” Gundy said. “I’m not sure. I haven’t gotten an update other than the game when they said that he wasn’t coming back and they thought that he might have had maybe a fracture or a crack or something, but I’m not for sure.”

Arkansas tailback Ja’Quinden Jackson rushed 24 times for 149 yards and 3 touchdowns while Andrew Armstrong caught 10 passes for 164 yards.

Jackson fumbled a pitch and receiver Isaiah Sategna (4 catches, 78 yards) also fumbled a punt when hit by a teammate.

The Cowboys turned all three of those turnovers into points to help its comeback.

Gundy wasn’t happy with a motion penalty late in the game that likely kept OSU from running out clock and kicking a field goal to win it in regulation.

The penalty gave Arkansas enough time to tie it 31-31 on Kyle Ramsey’s 45-yard field goal at the end of regulation.

“When we go on two and we clap and clap again, we motion the tight end to run the ball over there, and they jump,” Gundy said. “The explanation to me was that you can’t do that, but we’ve done it before. So there’s the issue you have with officiating crews. That’s an SEC crew. We did it, we’ve done it before, we did it all preseason in scrimmages with Big 12 crews and didn’t get called.

“So, Steve Shaw is the head of (NCAA) officiating, he needs to fix it. He needs to get them all in one room, and everybody has the same rule. That’s the way I see that.”

Photo by John D. James

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