Arkansas is 1-1 after a gut-wrenching loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater. The Hogs jumped to a 14-0 lead and were up 21-7 at the half, but were ultimately undone by a cascade of errors on all sides, falling 39-31 in double-overtime.

Bobby Petrino’s offense was extremely potent, putting up 648 yards and overwhelming a veteran Oklahoma State defense for most of the day. But two turnovers (one a pick-six), nagging injuries to running back Ja’Quinden Jackson, and a series of broken plays in the second half kept the Hogs from turning chunks of yardage into points.

The defense also played pretty well, allowing just 385 total yards (360 in regulation) and just 24 points in regulation against a very good offense. However, the Cowboys also scored on every second-half drive (one was continued by a muffed punt by Arkansas, but still), so the Razorback defense did not finish strong.

Two perspectives

Fans can reasonably come away with two different perspectives from this one.

First, the negative perspective, which is simply that this is yet another Sam Pittman close-games breakdown. Arkansas will continue to lose games like this as long as Pittman is the coach. Dating back to the 23-21 heartbreak loss to Texas A&M in September 2022, Arkansas is now 2-10 in its last 12 one-possession games. Pittman’s clock management was bad, even failing at basic things like calling a timeout at the right time. The special teams – run by Pittman’s good friend Scott Fountain in his fifth season – were, as they usually are in close games, catastrophic, with two missed field goals and a turnover. The defense, which mostly played well, had a critical personal foul in the second overtime, allowing the Cowboys’ game-winning score. The offense, which also played well, had multiple execution issues and broken plays, and both sacks against Green were taken right at the edge of field goal range, when taking a sack hurts the most.

The second perspective is that Arkansas thoroughly outplayed Oklahoma State, looked like the better team, and, if the predictive elements of this game continue all year, the Hogs will prove to be much better than the Pokes, which probably puts them at seven or even eight wins. This positive perspective basically says that it stinks to give away a very winnable game, but Arkansas proved itself to be much better than we thought on both sides of the ball. You don’t lose many games when you outgain an opponent 648-385.

I haven’t run the numbers yet, but my expectation is that our calculation of Noise-Adjusted Points – which up-weight the value of predictive elements in a game (staying ahead of the chains, consistently moving the ball) and down-weight the value of unpredictive or noisy elements (penalties, turnovers, explosive or disastrous plays, special teams breakdowns) – will show that Arkansas was the much better team and should have won by two scores or more. If that means nothing to you, consider that the data shows that noise-canceled scores are more predictive of future performance than actual scores. That’s a major difference between this loss and other close losses under Pittman: Arkansas actually played a lot better than Oklahoma State, in a measurable way. Last year’s losses to Ole Miss and Alabama were technically one-score losses, but the Hogs did not “out-perform” the box score in any meaningful way and were honestly lucky the games were that close (you could add plenty more to that: 2021 Alabama and 2022 LSU come to mind).

And close-game luck can ebb and flow. Bret Bielema opened his Arkansas tenure by losing his first nine one-possession games, a span that includes the entire 2013 and 2014 seasons, plus the Toledo and Texas A&M losses early in 2015. He finally won a one-possession game with a 24-20 win over Tennessee. The next few one-possession games? A 54-46 four-OT win over Auburn, a 53-52 OT win over Ole Miss, a 51-50 loss to Mississippi State, a 21-20 win over Louisiana Tech, a 41-38 two-OT win over TCU, and a 34-30 win over Ole Miss. After starting 0-9, Bielema went 6-1 over his next seven one-possession games, which included some of the most exciting and clutch Hog wins of the decade. Bielema didn’t suddenly start coaching better in close games (his record would regress starting with the 2016 Mizzou loss), he just got his team in position enough that the breaks starting going his way.

So as you can guess, I’m more in line with the second perspective. I think the Hogs will be fine(-ish). I think their offense and defense are better than expected, and I think it’s just unfortunate that they ran into a disciplined and talented Oklahoma State team in their second game. The Cowboys are built to take advantage of teams that can’t get out of their own way, and that’s what we saw. The pick-six was fluky. The dropped punt when a gunner fell into the returner was fluky. The broken plays were a product of a new offensive staff, new quarterback, and new running back, and they won’t persist deep into the year.

The positive perspective doesn’t mean there isn’t frustration. Yes, clock management on the last drive wasn’t great, and that’s been a feature of the Pittman era. Yes, field goal kicking looks like it’s going to be a problem in the post-Cam Little era. That’s not great for close games. And Pittman doesn’t seem to instill a sense of focus and discipline in his team, because you keep seeing dumb plays all over the place at critical moments. But the season’s not lost, and this looks like it has potential to be a very fun team.

Around the SEC

Another reason to feel better? Some of Arkansas’ future opponents didn’t look great on Saturday.

Cal 21, Auburn 14. Arkansas opens SEC play on the Plains on September 21st, but Auburn has already dropped a home game. Cal, which went 6-7 a year ago and hasn’t had a winning season since 2019, forced five Auburn turnovers. Auburn’s offense remains catastrophic in Year 2 under Hugh Freeze. The Tigers amassed 286 yards of total offense, and Payton Thorne threw four picks. Freeze hasn’t come close to flashing a competent offense in his 14 games as head coach, and this isn’t looking like a breakthrough year.

At this point, I think it’s fair to say that this game is a must-win for Arkansas. A 1-0 start in SEC play with three winnable games to follow (Texas A&M in Arlington, then Tennessee and LSU at home) will give the Hogs a chance to build some momentum.

UL Monroe 32, UAB 6. Non-SEC score here, but in case you missed, next week’s opponent has some issues. The Blazers have had some good teams in the past, but this does not appear to be one of them.

Arizona State 30, Mississippi State 23. Here’s another must-win, as State failed to crack even 300 yards of offense against a Sun Devil team that went 3-9 last year. I was unimpressed with the hire of Jeff Lebby, and State’s talent level is not very high this year.

Alabama 42, South Florida 16. For the second straight year, the Tide were pushed by lowly South Florida. This game was 14-13 after three quarters. Kalen DeBoer has a really tough task in replacing Nick Saban, but this wasn’t an ideal second game, especially with Saint Nick himself in the building for the field dedication.

Oklahoma 16, Houston 12. This game was close for far too long, especially considering that Barry Odom and UNLV crushed Houston 27-7 last week. Oklahoma has looked very shaky on offense so far with new QB Jackson Arnold.

South Carolina 31, Kentucky 6. This was a hideous game, and it’s a shame that Arkansas isn’t playing either of these teams this year. The Gamecocks were held to just 252 yards of offense… which is a lot more than Kentucky’s meagre 183 yards on the day, including just 44 passing. Rocket Sanders isn’t getting much running room, but the Gamecocks are 2-0 thanks to an offense that doesn’t shoot itself in the foot and a pretty salty defense.

Texas 31, Michigan 12. Texas is really good, but Michigan might be really bad. Jim Harbaugh left a mess in Ann Arbor for Sherrone Moore to clean up, with a very new roster and no benefit of, uh, extreme scouting. Still, good win for Texas.

Tennessee 51, NC State 10. This game seems like a product of marketing from Duke’s Mayo, who sponsored it. I’m not sure why NC State was ranked and I don’t think they are actually that good. Still, Tennessee looks solid if mostly untested so far.

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