FAYETTEVILLE -- Bobby Petrino is preparing his football team for Mississippi State on Saturday in the final home game of the three-game stretch.

Mississippi State beat then No. 12 Arizona State 24-20 on Sept. 6. They took Texas to the wire on Saturday before losing 45-38 in overtime. Petrino took over as interim head coach after Notre Dame blew out the Razorbacks in the fifth game of the season. When Petrino was the head coach at Arkansas previously he had 10- and 11-win seasons. With all the changes in college football since then can Arkansas repeat that?

"Yeah, I don't think there's any question in my mind that Arkansas can do that and Arkansas will do that," Petrino said. "I mean, you know, the revenue sharing now is something that I think helps Arkansas in that aspect. And, you know, the one thing that's going to happen is we have a whole group of seniors that are going to be gone, and, there's going to have to be a lot of recruiting from the portal."

Petrino is hoping to shed the interim tag and take over as head coach again. From the inside, does he believe the next coach will have what it takes to compete?

"I think that's a question that's not for me to address right now," Petrino said. "I think for me to address right now is what do we need to do to go out on the field and put a good product out there, and find a way to win the game. And that's all I can focus on. That's all I'm going to focus on. So I believe that that's what I should do. I believe it's about the players, and I need to give them every amount of energy that I have in just one direction, and that's in practicing and playing the game."

Since Petrino took over and even before in SEC games the Hogs have been close to winning each, but instead lost by a close margin. How is the attitude of the team now?

"You know, I've been impressed with our attitude," Petrino said. "I've been impressed with the leadership, within the team and guys wanting to step up and get more work and get more reps and get in the depth and try to get out on the playing field. So, you know, obviously, it's stressful. You know, there's no question about that. But I do feel like they've reacted to it pretty well. Tomorrow will be a big thing. We need to get out on the practice field tomorrow and practice hard and physical and show the fight that we're going to need to have to win the game on Saturday."

Petrino has praised the offensive line much of the time since taking over, but that wasn't the case this past Saturday when the running game was almost nonexistent.

"They need to take a good look in the mirror," Petrino said. "That’s what you have to do when you don’t execute and play the way you have. It comes down to a lot of communication, it comes down to a lot of technique. We lost our technique for a while. You can’t take a lot away from Auburn because they are very good, they’re good at it, they’re good at what they do, they’re well-coached and they played extremely hard. They were more physical than we were and I feel like that’s the first time this year where our O-line didn’t match the physicality of who we’re playing against."

Petrino expects to have defensive tackle Cameron Ball back for Saturday's game, but not another player at that position.

"Yeah, Cam will practice tomorrow, no contact, and then should be ready for Saturday," Petrino said. "So we still have to wait and see, but he should be ready to go.

"No, I don't think he'll (David Oke) be back with us."

Petrino did get Danny Saili back at defensive tackle last week and was impressed.

"You know, they’re not defensive line people, but I thought our corners really stepped up and played well," Petrino said. "It’s probably the best our safeties have played in reading run and pass and coming to the run and really helping and being a force there. Danny played well and he’s a disruptive guy. His production wasn’t as much as I thought after the game, but he’s disruptive. He’s always been disruptive. When you go against him in practice, his quickness and his twitch is disruptive to the blockers. He helped us there with some reps. Quincy Rhodes played really well. He did a really nice job and played extremely hard and rushed the passer well and did a nice job."

Arkansas and Mississippi State will kickoff at 3 p.m. Saturday on the SEC Network in Razorback Stadium.