Gundy claims Arkansas is talented as any team Oklahoma State will play this season

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – Arkansas and Oklahoma State haven’t met on the football field in 44 years, but Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy is impressed with he sees on video from the Razorbacks.

The two 1-0 teams will meet Saturday morning at 11 a.m. in Stillwater in a game that will be nationally televised by ABC.

“I’ve scanned through them over the summer, and they had four of five (other) games last season that they could won,” Gundy said of an Arkansas team that finished 4-8. “I don’t know what their record was last year, but it looked to me they could’ve won eight games pretty easy in obviously a vert difficult conference. They played against good teams and lost (by) single-digit points late in the fourth quarter.

“So, this team that we’re playing Saturday – regardless of what anybody in the country might think -will be as talented as anybody we play this year, in my opinion.”

Indeed the Razorbacks lost 24-21 at Ole Miss and 27-24 at Alabama among their five one-score losses in 2023.

Arkansas is coming off a 70-0 win over in-state FCS foe UAPB while Oklahoma State handled two-time defending FCS national champion South Dakota State 44-20.

“When you play a team in the SEC, you gonna play girth,” Gundy said. “We need to make good strides between last week and this week to be able to block a front that is better than we saw last week.

“From a technique standpoint…the team we just played was excellent. They just didn’t have as much size as what we’ll face Saturday.”

Gundy admits that Oklahoma State, who has a pair of former Razorbacks in defensive end Collin Clay and tailback A.J. Green, will likely not be able to get much from Arkansas’ win against over-matched UAPB.

“I’m gonna guess we’re not gonna get a lot out of it because they probably went very vanilla really quick, would be my guess,” Gundy said. “Now, I haven’t looked at it. We’ll get something out of it, but it’s not gonna be as much as what they’re gonna get out of this game because we’re more like who we are in this game.”

Oklahoma State tailback Ollie Gordon is a Heisman Trophy candidate after rushing for 1,732 yards and 21 touchdowns last season.

Gordon had 28 carries for 126 yards and three touchdowns in Saturday’s win.

“Well, he was physical last year, and he looks to be physical again now,” Gundy said. “I thought he ran very well. Made guys miss, guys bounce off of him. He made big runs at key times today (Saturday), and he looks better physically running than even he did last year, in my opinion.

“Now, as we get through the next month, we start to play teams that are going to be bigger and more athletic — again, not taking anything away from them — but we’re going to play teams that will be in a better physical presence. It’ll be interesting to watch him. But today, I thought he was good from a physical standpoint.”

Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman, who is 24 and in his seventh year of college, was 24 of 33 passing for 245 and 2 touchdowns on Saturday.

Bowman, who was at Texas Tech and Michigan before transferring to Oklahoma State last season, had 15 touchdowns, but also a whopping 14 interceptions in 2023.

“I thought he played very well for what we ask our quarterbacks to do,” Gunday said. “And the improvement that you guys see, which I’m guessing from what he in this game compared to the majority of the games he did last year, was good and he distributed the ball in a manner we ask him to in our system.

“And he did a nice job sitting in the pocket and relaxing and making some throws after he had really good protection.”

South Dakota State had 388 yards, 264 through the air.

“Defensively, we played pretty well,” Gundy said. “I almost did the math in my head. There’s about four plays we could’ve taken away, and it would be almost 50% of their production — no, 35% of their production. That’s just me doing it in my head.”

Photo courtesy of Oklahoma State