'Times When Most People Panic, We Don't Panic:' OSU Bounces Back In The Second Half To Beat Arkansas, 39-31, In Double Overtime

Oklahoma State rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit to defeat Arkansas, 39-31, in double overtime on Saturday. With the win, the Pokes improve to 2-0 for the eighth season in a row.

Trailing 21-7 at halftime, Oklahoma State outscored Arkansas 32-10 in the second half and overtime and won the turnover battle 2-0 after the break. The Cowboys also posted 308 yards of offense in that span, bouncing back from a 77-yard showing over the first 30 minutes.

Saturday marked the first time an SEC opponent played inside Boone Pickens Stadium since Oklahoma State’s 24-10 victory over Georgia on September 5, 2009. Additionally, OSU has now won its last four home games against current members of the SEC (Arkansas in 2024, Oklahoma in 2023 and 2021, Texas in 2022)

Following the game, OSU head coach Mike Gundy met with the media:

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy

Opening Statement: 

“The only thing I can say statistically was we won the turnover margin and won the penalties, and then we were really good in overtime on both sides of the ball. We wasted the first half. Their coaches had better concepts and schemes than our coaches did. Our players got out of position, but for the most part, I thought, through the first quarter and a half, they had better concepts, did a better job of scheming than we did. At halftime, our coaches were fantastic with the adjustments we made. Players were really good about absorbing information, not panicking, not pointing fingers, taking it back out on the field and executing it and playing much better. We had like eight yards in the first quarter or something, so we started really slow, but I think they outcoached us in the first half."

 On his team bouncing back in the second half and OT:

"I'm going to go with the culture we have here. I know everybody gets tired of hearing that, but our culture allows us to function in critical times. Times when most people panic, we don't panic. We take advantage of it and stay on the course. What does winning a game like this do for this team? We can get a lot of things out of it. One, there'll be a lot of good coaching on video. There's a lot of mistakes that we made. Coaches make mistakes, as I said earlier in the game, my job is to evaluate everything equal and they out coached us, certainly in the first quarter, but they can understand if they stay the course, don't panic, take information, make adjustments, then you can always figure out a way to win. Give yourself a chance."

On the false start call late in regulation:

"When we go on two and we clap and clap again, we motion the tight end to run the ball over there, and they jump. The explanation to me was that you can't do that, but we've done it before. So there's the issue you have with officiating crews. That’s an SEC crew. We did it, we've done it before, we did it all preseason in scrimmages with Big 12 crews and didn't get called. So, Steve Shaw is the head of officiating, he needs to fix it. He needs to get them all in one room, and everybody has the same rule. That's the way I see that."

On improving the run game:

"We got beat up pretty good in it, but we needed to get to the pass quicker. There's an extra guy there, and those are things we talked about. And, you know, once we started to expand the width of the field, we were able to throw for 326. If we had a better plan of attack based on what we saw earlier, we would throw for 450. It's percentages in my head on knowing what happened. We're not going to be able to get away with this much more. We're going to have to get better, we're going to have to get to 4.2 yards a carry… Whenever you have an issue, you’ve got to find out what it is, then you’ve got to have a plan to fix it. Then you’ve got to put that plan in place to fix it, then you’ve got to go execute. It's really that simple, and that's what we have to do this week."