Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome in, everybody, and a very happy Monday. I'm your host, Christina Long, joined in the studio today by Ethan Westerman. We're going to look back at Arkansas's game against Georgia, which I think we have maybe some mixed feelings about. Some good, some not so good. We're going to kind of have a little vibe check about how we're feeling coming out of that game.
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[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think had you asked me before the season, what's your score prediction for Arkansas Georgia, I would have said something along the lines of 45:17. It feels like about how an Arkansas Georgia game, you know, at least coming into the season we thought it would go I think the it's at least a little bit better vibes than the week before just because after the Utah game there was really not. It was. You were really grasping for straws if you wanted to find some positive from that game, there really weren't any. You saw some developments against Georgia, a team that looked competent at times. But end of the day, two weeks in a row you get, you know, you're just no match for your opponent. So obviously, you know, people are disappointed, frustrated, all the above just with kind of how I think the early season's gone. But there were at least I'm kind of with Tom where I Saw enough positive developments against Georgia, you know, because walking off the field at Rye Cycle Stadium the week before, I. I mean, I kind of shuddered at the thought of what's about to happen with them in Georgia because I was like, this could be so. So ugly. And I get 4517 is ugly.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: It was not good.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: It was not good. I'm not sitting here saying, could it have been worse? It could have definitely been worse. And honestly, like, they.
They kept it interesting for long enough in the game, and by interesting, it wasn't, like, close. It wasn't close, but it was, you
[00:02:24] Speaker A: know, there was still maybe a chance
[00:02:26] Speaker B: to make it a little. Like, it wasn't just the absolute wiping off the field that I can. That I kind of expected.
It was a blowout.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: There was more we could take from it than I thought there would be in both directions, both constructive, you know, critical, and, like, okay, maybe that's an area for. For some growth or, like, maybe we're seeing a little bit progress. And I think some of that. I think maybe the reason why the vibes are not quite as low is because they weren't expecting to win this game. Utah, everybody knew that was gonna be a big game. It felt like one that they could win if they were going to be the kind of team they wanted to be. Because we didn't really know a whole lot about Utah besides, you know, they've been good, but they were kind of in transition, still are, you know, weren't sure what they were gonna look like first big, real test. And I think because there was kind of that. That optimism or the. It didn't feel like one that you were gonna pencil in as a loss, like, from, you know, the start of the season. Whereas Georgia, even if they had beaten Utah, I would have picked Georgia to win, and I think most people would have. Yeah. And I think that.
So I think losing a game like that doesn't feel, you know, never feels as bad as losing one that you thought you could win and kind of felt like you needed to win.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And I think that's the whole deal. Is the Georgia game like, just that the bar was so low in that that you saw them at times show some things. It's like against Utah, there really just was nothing to take positive at all from the game. You saw at least some steps in the right direction, I thought, against Georgia, but end of the day, you're staring at a 1 and 2 football team through three that is suddenly going into a week four game against Tulsa, and it Feels like a you better, you got to win this game type of deal. And, you know, that's not ideal. I'm not sitting, not going to sit here and say, like, fans should be just thrilled with, you know, taking some whatever minor moral victories you can find from a 45, 17 loss to Georgia. Like, I'm not sitting here saying that, but at least it was a little bit, you know, of maybe a positive direction than the Utah game, which, you know, I think that that's the thing where I'm kind of at with this Arkansas football team is just, we've seen now whenever they play top, these just better competition. They've really not been any sort of match. Can they by the end of the year be a lot more competitive when they're facing top teams? Because they've got plenty more, you know, elite teams left on the schedule. So the bar is pretty low right now. But I did think that against Georgia, at least, I think probably the biggest positive, and I get it, a lot of this was against Georgia, second and third.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: That's the thing.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: But they fought in the second half a lot better than against Utah. Against Utah, it felt like there was just kind of a.
I don't know if the coaches would agree because they
[00:04:55] Speaker A: said, we talked, we were talking about effort problems after that, for sure.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: And. But at least it felt like against Georgia they weren't, they were going to keep fighting. And so, you know, that's something you can work with. But certainly this week against Tulsa, it's kind of a. Now in a you better win this situation.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: I want to debrief with you on the two quarterback situation, because yesterday I, I don't think I told you about this. We were working on. We do a Sunday takeaway story. Just like four takeaways, five takeaways from the game.
I was sitting on my couch trying to work on it and I started doing something on how I felt like K.J. jackson had looked better than he had in either of the first two games. I thought he looked like he played his best game, especially considering the level of competition. Obviously, stat wise, North Alabama better, not a great game, you know, that kind of thing.
Level of competition factored in. I felt like it was his best game. And then I started trying to quantify that with numbers and all. Like he was able to put up some good stats, get close to what he did against North Alabama. But then I was looking and it was, a lot of it was against the twos and the threes late in the game. And so I was like, I don't feel like I have a lot I can quantify. But while you and I were sitting next to each other at the game, we were talking about how AJ we felt like KJ looked more comfortable than he had. We thought AJ Hill looked more comfortable than KJ did, but also felt like KJ played probably his best games of our am. I like crazy off with that because I couldn't. I couldn't put stats in the story about it, but I still felt it. It's not crazy.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: I agree with you. I mean, the mo. The biggest thing for me is KJ was more accurate and he even like there was still a few left on the table. Like Matt Adcock dropped a pass, like there was even a few more completions left in there. I think there was a couple other, you know, balls that could have been caught. I know Chris Marshall bailed out K.J. jackson with that crazy catch down the sideline to give him a completion, but it felt like K.J. jackson, you know, take out the strip sack, fumble, that, you can't have that. Like those are the things that'll kill you, especially in closer games.
Take that out. And I thought it was his best performance yet. I just thought he was more accurate. Thought he at least maybe saw the field a little bit better. My biggest thing is with this two quarterback situation is it's not like we have a D.J. lagway situation with Florida a couple years ago where A.J. hill comes in the game and you're like, oh, wow, this team's doing something now. There's nothing that you're seeing while AJ Hill is on the field that makes you think, like, it's time to yank KJ for good and roll with AJ you're just not seeing that. And to where I think that you get to a point where it's better to. Even if you're having imperfect quarterback play, which certainly through three weeks, I think that's a fair assessment. That is not perfect quarterback play. But you reach a point where it's probably best to just ride it out with. With a guy and let them maybe try and, you know, gain some confidence and get more in game reps if. If the offense just continues like say this week against Tulsa with K.J. jackson in the game, they just can't do anything. Yes, you shake things up, I think, and you keep testing it out till you find something that works. But I think we've reached a point where we kind of know between K.J. jackson and A.J. hill, the results aren't that much different on the field where you probably just want to, you know, say, you're our guy, we're going to ride with you, and we're going to grow through some of the, you know, the pains that come with quarterback who's in his first year starting.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I felt like maybe the reason the accuracy thing was. Was a big part of it. And I think part of why I felt better watching KJ during the game was in the first couple, especially against Utah, it was like every time the ball went through the air, I was like, where's it gonna go? What's gonna happen? And I did not feel the, like, tension every time the ball left his hand of, like, what's gonna go on? Like, where's it gonna go? I can't predict it. Who's gonna, you know, is somebody gonna come down with it? Is it gonna be intercepted? And that obviously comes down to the accuracy looking a little bit better, and I think the comfort level being better, seeming better than it had been, which makes sense. You know, you're. You're playing more games, you're getting more adjusted. But I think, you know, before, when we were asking all the questions about the quarterback battle, you know, before the season, before they named KJ the starter, they were saying, you know, coaching staff was saying, you. You don't want to have a quarterback win the job because somebody else lost the job. You want somebody who just takes control of the role and really wins it.
And they said they felt like, you know, they said that's what happened. They said KJ won the job. It was not about, you know, A.J. losing the job.
Now, having watched them, I kind of wonder about that a little bit. Is that fair to say? I mean, I think. Because I think both of them have similar struggles, if that makes sense. And like you said, it doesn't feel like when AJ got in the game, he. He kind of took control. They have similar issues or. Or similar. Similar issues that kind of manifest in different ways. And so I think that's. I think you're right that eventually you're gonna need to kind of just let somebody settle in and just kind of roll with it. And I. I still don't know. I. I still think that KJ maybe gives you the better ceiling, at least for now. I think aj. Both of them lack experience, which was something Silverfield talked about after the game. But what do you kind of make of that? Do you still feel like kj? You know, if you're. If you need to settle on one, you still think KJ's the one?
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah, for. That's where I'm at for sure on it. I just think that there's. There's been nothing to tell me otherwise. There's certainly. It's not like I thought KJ Jackson has gone out there and just given you a whole lot of things that give you confidence. But neither has A.J. hill. And we did see, I mean, here's a very small example, but in the game against Georgia, you know, it kind of looks like you might go out of the first half without even a whimper because you haven't put points on the board in Georgia just scores a touchdown with less than a minute left. And K.J. jackson, they talked all in the preseason about how he was better situational football.
They. They needed to move the ball down the field pretty fast. And I know Chris Marshall bailed him out with that catch, but K.J. jackson was able to get him in field goal range right before the end of the half.
And that was, I guess, at least a little glimmer of like, hey, here's a guy that. That understands time and situation. And they, they even. They could have had a chance at a touchdown, too, and then had to settle for the field goal. They moved the ball so fast down the field. But I just think that you look at the. The quarterback situation right now and there's.
You've seen KJ when he's on, actually can drop it in there sometimes. Like, he had a really nice pass. I'm blanking on maybe Jamari Hawkins in. In the second half, that was just a really good ball.
But then when he's not accurate, it's. It's pretty bad, but it's. Yeah, there's just nothing I can really grasp from AJ Hill that makes me say that he's gonna, you know, you put him in there and you're all of a sudden gonna have a much better offense.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Especially if what they said was true. With the kind of. What settled the battle was KJ being better in kind of situational football. That's really important.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: And if he's better in that situation, that's. That's what you need. And I think, you know, a lot of people, I think especially in week one, you know, we saw some people like on our message board saying they've got to give AJ Hill a try with some of the turnover issues are just like putting the ball in jeopardy. And based on what we had seen in the limited practice, we got to watch, I was like, that's. I don't think that's going to solve a turnover problem. He. It. I don't think he puts the ball in jeopardy any less than KJ does. It's different. I think it's different forms of the same problem. But I think, you know, the turnover thing is going to be. It's going to be something to monitor all season after how much they've talked about it and the way that it started. And I think not having an interception from KJ was a start. You know, you have the fumble, obviously you can't have that, but I think that's at least a step, if that makes sense.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's where we're at with this team right now that we're having to like find little tiny developments of like I think we're seeing somebody progress there a little bit. I will give A.J. hill credit. He did. He had some good plays on Saturday. I think about. He had. There was a really low snap to him that I thought it was just about to be.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: A lot of low snaps like him specifically, very weird.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: But there was. And there was one of them that I thought it was. I think it was on a third down. I was like, oh, this is going to be a sack or something like not recovering from this. He picked it up and quickly found. I think it was Hawkins. I think maybe if I don't remember exactly what receiver. I just always pick Hawkins, but pretty sure it was Hawkins and he delivered a pass pretty quick. That Hawkins did a good job to. To make sure didn't hit the ground and they moved the sticks. It was a. At least an example of AJ Hill like recovering from a not ideal start to a play and moving the sticks. He does some good things, but he also, I think through the first few games has been pretty sack prone too. So you know, we're grasping for straws whenever you're trying to find just like what you think is going right because there's so much that just needs fixed and needs cleaned up.
But I did think against Georgia quarterbacks looked better than they did against Utah for sure. I don't think that's really a question
[00:13:13] Speaker A: and better than I expected.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's, it's Georgia. Like this is mighty Georgia with always a great defense, with great, you know, always good defensive backs and they pass the ball pretty well. And I mean Kirby Smart was really complimentary of Arkansas's passing game.
He was asked basically like what'd you make of Yalls run defense? Because Arkansas once again just couldn't run the ball. He was like, oh, they didn't have to. They could just throw the ball on us. So obviously Kirby Smart's an elite coach and he's gonna, you know, always nitpick even a 45 to 17 win. But he gave Arkansas some. Some props and said they did a good job on the passing game against us. So Arkansas did. This was a big development for me as far as. Just like, if you are looking for something that took a step in the right direction. Arkansas was way better against man coverage against Georgia than it has been. Huge talking points in other games. And Kirby at halftime, he's going off the field and that's the number one thing that he says to their radio crew going in is like, they're beating us in man coverage. So I'm like, oh, that's something that Arkansas's needed to. To. To get better at. Chris Marshall obviously helps that out a lot. He's just a playmaker. Like, if. If there's one thing like this Arkansas offense has been a very sloppy unit. At least you. We have figured out they do have a star with Chris Marshall. He. That guy's. He's really good. He's near the top, the. Almost the leading receiver in the sec.
And, and so he helped him out in that regard. But yeah, once again, we sit here and you're. You're trying to find pauses from a 45, 17 loss, but you got to start somewhere, I guess.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Marshall was a guy that everybody, you know, we all kind of knew when they brought him in, okay, that's going to be your new go to, you know, outside receiver. And then there was a little bit of consternation after the spring game and he had a bunch of drops and they said, you know, that's very uncharacteristic. And so there was a little bit of, okay, what's it going to look like? They talked in preseason about wanting him to be more consistent, and I think they were talking about that sort of thing.
And he's been what we thought he was going to be.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: I think, yeah, he's been, in my opinion, better than I thought he'd be so far in games because this. He's had to make plays like to.
Nothing's come easy for this offense. It's been Chris Marshall a lot of times making plays. And so he's really good.
I think to be the third leading receiver in the SEC right now with this offense.
And it doesn't feel like they're forcing it to him is the thing either. Like how we maybe saw with a few years ago, Taylor Green to Andrew Armstrong, where it was like, locked in on him. It feels like, honestly, he's Just made plays. And so they got a really good receiver in Chris Marshall. We'll see. You know, kind of if teams start to, you know, game plan heavier, trying to remove him from the picture, if other guys can step up. And obviously quarterback has to step up to.
That's the overarching theme of this offense, is it's hard to win if your quarterback plays inconsistent. So, you know, maybe they can start moving in the right direction. I think about, like, I'm not at all trying to make a Ryan Silverfield, Bobby Petrino comparison here, but you're one of Bobby Petrino and it's different times now. You can fix a roster a lot faster than you can fix one back then. But granted, at the same time, you're fixing a roster at an Arkansas program that isn't as attractive to come to as a lot of other programs. So there are still things that translate.
But the Bobby Petrino's first year, they struggled against Western Illinois in the opener. They really struggled against Louisiana, Monroe and to move to two. And I won those games by like a combined five points and then got pummeled by Alabama, pummeled by Texas, pummeled by Florida. And by the end of the year, though, it was a team that had found a way to stick together and you could see things maybe developing. And they beat LSU in the rivalry game. They beat. Beat a ranked Tulsa team in Fayetteville, and they were just a lot better by the end of the year. And I think that's what Arkansas fans want to see from Ryan Silverfield's first team is just don't let what's happened in these first few weeks become just the story of the season. And that's what you grow accustomed to seeing, like, have a team that gets better. And by the end of the year, it's. It's just a much better product than it was on day one. That's, I think, the main thing people want to see. And it starts at the quarter of X spot.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: What do you think needs to happen for. For us to walk out of this season feeling a little bit more confident or feeling like, okay, it wasn't, you know, whether it's a win total or a way that they're performing, a way that they're losing or, you know, they win a surprise game? What do you think needs to happen for. For things to feel better than they do right now at the end of the year? Because I don't fault anybody for being frustrated. You know, I think, and we talk about it all the time, people are very tired of being told to be patient. And I know that's not what you're trying to say, but what do they need to do in order to leave. Leave the year with the vibes a little higher than they have been through these first three weeks.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Well, let's start with. I mean, they better beat Tulsa this week. Well, because that's a game if you lose. Like, I just don't think that's a game you can lose and really recover the vibes.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Last year, it's losing to Memphis last year.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: I think it's. It's probably. I don't know if I'm. I mean, it's worse.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: It's worse because the coaches are in different situations.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: This is. And Tulsa's been struggling in recent years. Memphis at least have kind of been a group of five.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: That's true. That's true.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: I. And this is at home, on your home field, like beat Tulsa. Well, let's just start there. Don't drop that game and then win some SEC games. Find a way to get better. By the end of the year, you've Vanderbilt Circle. Vanderbilt Circle, extremely beatable. Can you look better against Missouri than you have in recent years? Missouri's ranked right now, but they're. They look like a ranked team that you could maybe surprise.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: They did not look good against Troy over the week.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: South Carolina lost to Mississippi State. And I, I've given Mississippi State credit all since week one. I think they're pretty good. But South Carolina seems beatable.
Auburn, I think is certainly winnable. That's on the road. But it's. The thing is they're also saying this about Arkansas. But that's the thing. Like by the end of the year, don't, don't go winless in SEC play. Find a way to scratch one off and then just be. It's crazy to say it's just be better. Like, don't be this product.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Do better.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Like, don't just be a better team. Like, don't be the team that you are right now. And like you said, I don't blame fans one, like at all for being like frustrated. I mean, I think it's just Arkansas feels like it's stuck. Like the program is just stuck of like being told to like watch a losing product. And that's frustrating. But I think that you do have to be like, this is the team they have this year. So if you're going to keep watching the games, like to be realistic, it's like, I guess that if the vibe, the vibes will be higher at the End of the year, if some of these things have happened, you can't right now completely change this team. They have who they have. So it's, I guess, you know, you got what you got and work with it and see if they can become a better team by the end of the year. That isn't, you know, even in these games that they're overmatched, like against Georgia and Utah, they're more competitive. But yeah, fans, absolutely.
I'm an Atlanta Falcons fan, and let me tell you, that's frustrating as it gets. It's so maddening when you watch a team that just feels stuck.
Falcons have quarterback problems, so I can relate to that. It's just. It's like, don't tell it. I think fans are tired of moral wins and this might be a year where you got to stomach a few. I think that's just what it comes down to. And hopefully next year is a different story.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: My fiance from Springdale, Arkansas, alum, huge Razorback fan. The Saint, he's a Saints fan. Saints won yesterday. Close game. Game they weren't expected to win against the Ravens. He was over the moon. He was like, I forgot what it was like to feel sports joy. Like he was. He was very excited about that. So.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: And I think, yeah, that's the main thing is like, if the Racerbacks can. Can win fans over throughout the course of the season by the growth and by the vision, like you, you just gotta have a vision by the end of the year. Don't go into another off season with there's no vision and nothing you like.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: You need to get rid of everybody on the roster and get a whole new one. Obviously there's gonna be turnover. There's gonna be turnover every.
But don't get in a situation where it's like, all right, we gotta.
How are we gonna spend this year? You know, are we gonna change the tactic? Do we need to bring in another new 60 people? You know, try to kind of hold together, find some positives you can hold together and. And give people something to kind of root for.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: A word you will hear every single first year coach ever at any level say is foundation. Maybe Lane Kiffin didn't say it because I don't think he went to LSU ready to lay a foundation. He came ready to win. But at most, rebuilding and rebuild jobs, they use the word foundation. Don't get to the end of the year and you're asking, is there actually a foundation here? You need to at least have something that you say they can build off that.
And right Now I get it. That's why I think fans are. We're so extremely, especially going into the Georgia game and probably still it's lingering is against Utah it was like what is the foundation here? Things were just very, there weren't a lot of positives. It looked like. I think that also the maddening part was just the, there's actually two things they weren't doing. The things that they preached in the preseason about being good at the controllables, self inflicted wounds, turnover margin, that type of things. It just, that vision wasn't happening early against Utah and I mean still hasn't really at any game so far. But then the second thing is the timing of this report from the Athletic about your, your, how much money you have for your, for your roster construction. And it feels like to fans like, oh, so did we get Duke after
[00:22:20] Speaker A: everyone was told, yeah, we're up toward the middle of the SEC now.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's then that comes out and I think that it's just a perfect storm for frustration that happened and rightfully so. I mean I get it. Fans are tired of watching what feels like the same cycle of being told to stomach not winning a lot of games. And so that's, that's the biggest, I think mission for this team for the rest of the year is can you win some games that give people a vision.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: And I think one of the biggest sort of layup ways to do that and to show a little bit of growth is you mentioned the self inflicted wounds. We figured out this staff loves an acronym. SIWS is one of them. And you wrote about this in our takeaway story yesterday at whole long sports.com a lot of that, you know, some of that is some of the penalty stuff. Some of that is just some of the, you know, I don't know, like it's just, it's those little things that I think Ryan Silverfield has preached a lot. And I think that's, that's, you mentioned this, that's what's the disheartening part is they know what's wrong and they see it and they've been talking about it and it's obviously easier said than done to just fix it. To just say, oh we have too many penalties, let's stop having them. You know, it's, it's a little bit easier said than done. But I think if you can over the course of the year reduce some of the just shooting yourself in the foot because I mean we saw that with last year's team. That's something that your Fans have become very accustomed to seeing just those kind of beating yourself sort of plays.
I think if you can, if you can show some growth in that area, that will actually go a pretty long way to just to looking to, to finishing the year. If you can finish the year with like an air of competence. And I think that's one of the quickest ways to do it is to just some of the sloppiness and it's early in the year. I mean, I guess we're what, a quarter of the way through Now. Football is a small sample size sport, but it is still early. And so maybe you're just still kind of trying to, to get adjusted to that. And I think this weekend's game is a big way for you to, to show that because if you, you know, the North Alabama game gave everybody a little bit of pause because they didn't look how everyone thought they should look against an FCS team. Now you've got a couple more games under your belt, you've had a little bit more experience, you should be in a better place than you were in week one.
Is it going to look how you expect it to look against Tulsa or is it going to, you know, are there going to be reasons that give you pause again and say, what is this going to look like against the rest of this SEC schedule? Um, so I think this weekend gives them an opportunity to show some, some of the, you know, early season sort of wiggles are out, if that makes sense.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: There's two games left on the schedule where Arkansas will have the talent advantage. If you just look at roster and talent evaluation is Tulsa and it's Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt's at the bottom of the SEC with the talent they have on their roster.
You lose those type of games by doing the stuff that, that loses you games. Like you can't be having the, the turnovers. You can't be, you know, a quarterback getting into maybe a little bit of a rhythm and a little bit of a rhythm and then you drop a pass that would not only move the sticks, but you might even get some extra yard. Like you can't be doing those things in those type of games unless you want to put yourself at risk for losing. So I just think that that's, you know, obviously like you mentioned, the acronyms that they love, siws have been a thing early in the year that it's.
They take out the siws against Utah and Georgia and they aren't winning those games still, but it's. They give themselves a better shot. Like the score might look a little bit better in those games. But if you, if you have those against a Tulsa or a Vanderbilt or other games that maybe, you know, we view as, at least right now, games they should have a shot in, if you have those, then those can be by easily the difference in winning and losing. So they got to clean those up. And obviously there's never going to be a perfect week of football for any team. Actually Indiana last year made me question that. Indiana perfectly. There were some perfect weeks for them and watching them in the playoff, I was like, ah, a team that just doesn't.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Kurt Signetti wouldn't say they were perfect then.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: No. Yeah. No. And Kirby Smart certainly didn't think Georgia was perfect on Saturday. But there's always going to be Arkansas, you know, things that you do that you shouldn't do, but they need to reduce some. And I think that it starts this weekend with Tulsa, that this is a team that you have the talent advantage over. Can you just go out there on the field and be the better team?
So Tulsa is definitely a lot scarier than it was in the preseason after they beat Oklahoma State and Oklahoma State beats Oregon. So it's all of a sudden a lot more intriguing. But in some ways I think that kind of helps, honestly, that it's like you won't be overlooking Tulsa this week for sure.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: And I think that's something that Tulsa, after they beat Oklahoma State, they struggled a little bit against Sam Houston, a team more on their level. So that was a little bit of.
They played an FCS team. They played East Texas A M over the weekend. I didn't see the final of that game blowout as you would expect.
So I think when you look at Tulsa beating Oklahoma State, and we're going to talk more about Tulsa on our show throughout the week. So I don't want to get too far into previewing Tulsa, but I think when you look at their game against Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State was minus three in the turnover margin.
And that's how you lose to a team like Tulsa. And so that's the kind of thing that Arkansas just has to avoid. Obviously we've been talking about turnovers for a year. You know, this is not new information.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Just one year.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Key to win, don't give the ball away. But you know, big surprise. But I think that goes back to some of the, if you can clean up some of the mistakes and it goes back to the quarterback play like we were saying.
You know, I think in, in the Oklahoma State game they had two interceptions and two fumbles. And then they had an intercept. They got an interception. So that led to the margin. But so it was. It was evenly dispersed there. But I think the ball security thing for a staff that's been preaching it, if you're going to show some growth, this is, this is an opportunity to do it. Yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: And it's a night game in Fayetteville, which they've been craving a night game. They got new lights and everything.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Like, I don't know how many fans will be there. I have zero clue. The vibe. The vibe. Check for if fans really show up for this game.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: I thought people would. We were talking this morning and Mat Jones said he didn't think it would be great turnout for a seven o' clock game. But I guess, I guess that's right. I thought more people would maybe.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: I think, I think it'll be better than I'm expecting. Like, then I say that I'm expecting. I think it'll be maybe kind of like the Georgia game just at night. I kind of 60 something thousand wasn't.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Well, that. That's not real. I mean, that's not real at all. There were not 60,000 people at that game. But I don't know.
Do you think it would be better than Saturday? Honestly, Saturday's crowd was better than I thought it was going to be, attendance wise. There were a lot of Georgia fans, like a lot, lot. I think there might be a lot of Tulsa fans this weekend. Do you think attendance this. Do you think just eyeball, you know, eye test, looking at the stadium, do you think it's going to look more or less full than it did against Georgia?
[00:28:56] Speaker B: I think.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: I think more like.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: I think it'll be about the same. It's kind of how I expect it, but maybe. I think it's first night game. Weather's going to be pretty nice. At least that's what it's forecasted.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: If you want to see a win, this is your best shot at a win at home because they play at Vanderbilt, so they, you know, they need to win that one. Probably the circle, that one, like we said. But that's on the road. If you want to see a home
[00:29:16] Speaker B: win, this might be the one. And so it's night game. I just think that, yeah, it's the type of game that it's there for you to, to take a very big step in the right direction. Don't, don't mess it up type of deal.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: We're going to be previewing the Tulsa game throughout this week.
We have a lot of content coming on football front this this week, I'm excited. We're going to have Brandon Marcelo at our Hogs Illustrated Sports Club Luncheon on Thursday. So I'll do a little Q and A with will be our Thursday podcast this week. So looking forward to talking more Razor Rack football all week long and looking ahead to that Tulsa game because like we said, we think that might be their best shot at a win for a few weeks. So looking forward to continuing to preview that. We hope you'll subscribe to our show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and we hope to see you again tomorrow.
