By DON KAUSLER JR.

Arkansas (1-0) opens its 2024 football season at 11 a.m. Central Saturday (ABC) against No. 16 Oklahoma State (1-0) at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Okla.

Hold on. Didn’t Arkansas open its season a week ago in Little Rock against Arkansas-Pine Bluff?

No. We’re going to call the Razorbacks’ 70-0 victory an exhibition game. It was a glorified warmup for the real season.

And yet, it was an impressive victory. Arkansas became the first FBS team in the past 20 years to score a touchdown on its first 10 possessions of the season.

You would have thought Bobby Petrino was back with the Razorbacks. Wait. He is, and it showed.

In Petrino’s debut as offensive coordinator, new quarterback Taylen Green razzled and new running back Ja’Quinden Jackson dazzled as Arkansas compiled 687 yards (408 passing) and 34 first downs. It was 9 for 9 in third-down conversions. Fourteen players caught at least 1 pass. A 4-8 team that often beat itself last season didn’t have any turnovers, and it was only penalized 6 times for 48 yards.

The defense was just as good, allowing 130 total yards (7 rushing on 23 carries). Arkansas made 10 tackles for a loss, including 4 sacks, against a UAPB offense that was the equivalent of somebody’s junior varsity B team.

Cupcake. Yum.

Enough. Let’s move on to a key game – perhaps the key game – on Arkansas’ schedule. …

FIRST DOWN

Blood game: This will be the 47th meeting between Arkansas and Oklahoma State. Arkansas leads the series 30-15-1, but the most recent meeting was 44 years ago.

The Razorbacks were in the Southwest Conference and the Cowboys were in the Big Eight when No. 17 Arkansas won 33-20 on Sept. 20, 1980, at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium. Lou Holtz was the head coach at Arkansas; Jimmy Johnson coached Oklahoma State.

Pat Jones can explain how the series then went dormant, and bad blood wasn’t the case.

The Little Rock native practiced with Arkansas in the 1960s and was an Arkansas assistant coach in 1974 and 1975. He was an assistant coach at Oklahoma State when the series was paused after the 1980 game, and he later was the Cowboys’ head coach (1984-94).

He recently was a guest on the Hawgs Sports Network Daily Podcast.

“It probably got to the point where Oklahoma State didn’t have to come to Little Rock every year for money,” Jones said. “They started drawing well. … Basically Arkansas wouldn’t go home and home.”

Proximity makes the series a natural. Stillwater is approximately 180 miles from Fayetteville and roughly 240 miles from Little Rock.

“This game has got some history,” Jones said. “Geographically it’s a fit.” 

Henry Iba was a basketball coaching legend at Oklahoma State and served as the school’s athletic director from 1935 through 1970. He and Jones were close friends.

“He used to say, ‘I was so thankful to Coach [Frank] Broyles because he financially saved us,’” Jones said of Broyles, former Arkansas football coach and athletic director. “Oklahoma State would come to Little Rock every year; Arkansas wouldn’t come over here. It was kind of what we sometimes call a blood game. For money.” 

Oklahoma State is scheduled to visit Fayetteville in 2027 and 2033. Arkansas will return to Stillwater in 2032. 

“You’re going to want to play quality nonconference schedules now so the [playoff selection] committee will have respect for that,” current Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy said Monday. “This is a good matchup, because it’s hours and 45 minutes away, and you have a lot of crossover with people. 

“There’s a lot of Arkansas people that can live over here, and there’s a lot of Oklahoma people that have migrated over there with Walmart and all that stuff, so I think it’s good.”

SECOND DOWN

Slobberknocker expected: Oklahoma State opened its season last weekend with a 44-20 victory over 2-time FCS national champion South Dakota State, ending the Jackrabbits’ 29-game winning streak.

The Cowboys’ star is junior All-America running back Ollie Gordon, who ran 28 times for 126 yards and 3 touchdowns against South Dakota State. Last season he ran 285 times for 1,752 yards and 21 touchdowns.

Calling the Cowboys an experienced team is an understatement. They returned 11 starters on offense and 10 on defense from a team that capped a 10-4 season with a 31-23 victory over Texas A&M in the Texas Bowl. They have 34 seniors. Quarterback Alan Bowman is a seventh-year player who also played at Texas Tech and Michigan. Five sixth-year seniors start on the offensive line. 

Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman said Monday that the key matchup will be the Razorbacks’ defensive line against the Cowboys’ offensive line.

“There's going to be a slobberknocker a little bit,” he said. “Movement doesn't seem to bother them, which it would [with an] inexperienced line or an inexperienced player next to an experienced guy. But these guys have been playing together for a long time, and I think they have a lot of confidence in them.”

One possible area of weakness for Oklahoma State involves its defense.

The Cowboys ranked last in the Big 12 last season in plays given up of more than 20 yards, and they allowed 6 plays of 20 yards or more to South Dakota State. The Cowboys generated 3 such plays on offense.

“Defensively, we played good – and then gave up big plays,” Gundy said. “… As you start to play teams that are talented, that’s going to create an issue. That’s the first area we’ve got to improve on.”

THIRD DOWN

‘Very, very intense’: What’s it like playing quarterback for Petrino? Green discussed this Wednesday as a guest on The Paul Finebaum Show.

“He’s very, very intense,” said Green, a redshirt junior who transferred from Boise State. “Whether it’s in the film room or out on the field, he demands excellence from the quarterback position. He demands me to mind my Ps and Qs every single day and having no excuse.”

It’s not just the QB from whom Petrino demands excellence.

“That trickles down to the O-Line, to the running backs, to the receivers, just to everybody, just having the mentality of, ‘We’re going to score every single drive,’ ” Green said. “Every single time the ball gets in our hands, the belief and the execution that we need and that we’re going to have is ‘10 out of 10.’ That’s how we practice every single day.”

Green completed 16 of 23 passes for 229 yards and 2 touchdowns in his Arkansas debut. He also ran for 88 yards and 2 TDs on 6 carries.

One run in particular was spectacular. On a second-and-10 play from the UAPB 36 in the waning seconds of the second quarter, Green scrambled to the right sideline and appeared to be trapped near the 50. He escaped and raced completely across the field, crossing the goal line at the pylon. The TD gave Arkansas a 49-0 halftime lead. Green actually ran more than 100 yards on the play.

FOURTH DOWN

Old man and a mullet: Gundy has entered his 20th season as Oklahoma State’s head coach. His record is 167-79 (96-24 at home). Arkansas has had 7 head coaches (Houston Nutt, Bobby Petrino, John L. Smith, Bret Bielema, Chad Morris, Barry Lunney Jr. and Sam Pittman) since Gundy, a former Cowboys QB, took over as the head coach in 2005.

The Cowboys have played in 18 consecutive bowl games and have won 10 or more games 8 times. They went 12-1 in 2011 and 12-2 in 2021.

And yet Gundy is best known for a hairstyle and a 2007 rant.

“I have a ton of respect for Coach Gundy,” said Pittman, in his fifth season as Arkansas’ coach. “I mean, going into 20 years now at Oklahoma State University, he’s just done a phenomenal job.”

“I always get a kick out of listening to Coach Gundy’s press conferences, because he’s blunt and to the point and he is who he is,” Pittman said. “I have a lot of respect for that, and he catches a little heat for it.

“I don’t think he much cares, you know? I think he just is who he is. I’ve always had respect for him as a man, but then you go and you watch his teams play, and they’re always prepared, and they play hard as hell. And a lot of fun to watch.”

Last month, Gundy made his first appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN. Of course, he was asked about his hair. He is known for the mullet he used to have. McAfee’s crew members were disappointed to see that Gundy’s dark hair was shorter than usual.

Gundy said he is growing his mullet back out – “We’re looking at 6 to 8 weeks, Pat” – because his youngest son, Gage, said people his age thought it was cool. 

Gundy praised a McAfee crew member’s “big-time” mullet. The crew member thanked Gundy for being a godfather of the mullet.

Gundy also was asked about a heated comment he once made when he wanted criticism to be directed at him instead of his players, because, “I’m a man. I’m 40.” That was 17 years ago.

Now, Gundy said, “I’m an old soul. I’m 57 years old … way past being a man. … I’m an old man now.”