Razorback head football coach Sam Pittman disagrees with a pass interference call during their game against South Carolina Saturday afternoon at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

By Otis Kirk

FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 10 Arkansas will host Missouri State and Bobby Petrino on Saturday night with the Hogs looking to remain undefeated.

Sam Pittman credited Petrino's coaching for improving the Razorbacks' record and said he also realizes the Bears, like the Hogs, are 2-0 heading into this game.

"Well, we’re very excited to play Missouri State," Pittman said. "It’ll be a homecoming per se for Coach Petrino. He certainly had us on the map in ’10 and ’11, with 11 and 10 wins and a Cotton Bowl and certainly the Sugar Bowl. We’re excited to play their team. They have a good football team, an undefeated team."

Pittman took over an Arkansas program that was coming off one SEC win in three seasons. In just his third season the Hogs are ranked as were they last year at the end of the season.

"Well, I’d rather be ranked 10 — I’d rather be ranked 1! — but I’d rather be ranked 10 than 100," Pittman said. "We’re proud of where we are today. That doesn’t mean anything about Saturday’s game, but we are using it in recruiting and we’re proud of it. Certainly as long as we continue to do the things that got us to this point, we should play well on Saturdays. We’ve talked to our kids about that and addressed it. I believe if you get that high in recruiting you ought to use it for recruiting and that’s what we did."

Missouri State is led by senior quarterback Jason Shelley who transferred in from Utah State. In two games, Shelley has completed 37 of 54 passes for 563 yards and six touchdowns. He also has rushed 20 times for 36 yards and a touchdown. Pittman is very aware of Shelley.

"Shelley’s a good player," Pittman said. "He can run and pass. A very good player. He’s got some good talent around him. Their philosophy, it seems to me like they want to run the ball. They run the stretch play extremely well. Run inside zone as well. Run some counter action. But they’re going to stretch the field vertically, get in 10 personnel, empty personnel, 12 personnel. We have to be ready for all the different personnel groupings and understand what they like to do out of them. But he runs the show. Again, a very good athlete. He can run and has a very good arm. We have to keep him locked up in that pocket. We’ve got to get to him. If we don’t, he’s very accurate with the ball and has some really good wideouts."

The Bears have about 40 transfers counting Shelley. Pittman took a closer look at their talent.

"No, I think they have really good talent," Pittman said. "They've got a wideout from Central Michigan (Ty Scott) who I think’s fantastic. Their running back from K-State, (Jacardia) Wright, is a really good player. Obviously coach Petrino knows how to recruit and knows what he had need wise and and has done an exceptional job of roster management and getting guys on his roster that can play. And you look at them from junior college, from Minnesota, to Kansas State, Utah State, to wherever they may be coming from. He's done a great job with improving his talent level at Missouri State. And we know that they know the experience of playing D-1 ball, and it'll be a challenge for us."

One thing that has helped Arkansas prepare for not only Missouri State, but all the schools they have played in the cross training the defensive backs in the spring and preseason. Arkansas lost safety Jalen Catalon for the season in the opener. They also played with Myles Slusher last week.

"I think it goes directly to finding what your athletes can do, how fast they can learn," Pittman said. "Certainly when we two-spotted we moved kids around. We had a combo period in there where if your worst nightmare goes down during the game who would we put in, how would we practice. I think it’s just as important for the coaches to know who they would put in there as the players knowing and feeling confident that they’ve played next to the guy before a Saturday afternoon. We’re very conscious about that in practice.

"Again, I think we did learn from COVID. We also learned from COVID that, you know, don’t panic when you have injuries. There’s other kids that are working very hard that can go in and play. Just as you can’t think of a mistake on the field, our starter wouldn’t have done that. Well, he might have, too. Or our starter wouldn’t have missed a tackle, our starter would have covered it better. He may not have. You can’t give into that negative thinking. It’s got to be positive and you’ve got to believe in the guys that are out there. I think we do a really good job of cross training, which starts with the ability the kid has and how fast he can pick it up, and the coaching staff. I think we’ll certainly be ready this week, as we were last week."

The Hogs and Bears will kickoff at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 on ESPN+/SECN+.