Arkansas faces a tough one against Tulsa - here's the path to victory
Arkansas football hosts Tulsa, and it's hard to deny the sense of dread enveloping the Razorback program before kickoff Saturday night in Fayetteville. If Arkansas loses, it's a disaster and a sign that the Hogs could go 1-11 this season. Rock bottom. If Arkansas wins, it's not an SEC win or a win over a Big Ten or ACC brand-name team. No one is going to throw a parade for Ryan Silverfield if he wins this game. Victory will feel more like a relief than a triumph or a "turn the corner" type of moment for the Razorbacks. Nevertheless, winning will feel a whole lot better than losing. It's a game Silverfield urgently needs to win if he wants to maintain some small degree of credibility and trust among the fan base.
We are not at all convinced Arkansas will win this game, but there's another side to this: If Arkansas is going to win this game, it will definitely happen in one or two specific ways and not in several other possible ways.
If Arkansas wins, this game will not be a shootout, because this Arkansas offense is simply not good enough to get involved in one. Arkansas scored 31 points against North Alabama, an FCS opponent. That pretty much represents the ceiling for this offense in terms of what it can achieve, given that every other 2026 opponent is better than North Alabama. UA scored 17 points against Georgia, but 14 came against UGA's backups in garbage time. In a game which might be close all the way against Tulsa, there won't be garbage time or mop-up minutes. It will be urgent football for 60 minutes as two teams try to win a game and go down to the wire (or at least the final few minutes) in the pursuit of the result they want. Arkansas' offense, going up against a Tulsa defense which contained Oklahoma State and its much-discussed NFL draft prospect at quarterback, Drew Mestemaker, is extremely unlikely to score 31 points. It probably won't even score 24. The ceiling for UA's offense in this game might be 20 or 21 points.
If the Hogs are to win, they might score more than 20 or 21 points, but that would mean the defense or special teams score a touchdown. In fact, that's precisely what UA needs in this game: a lightning-bolt kind of play from the defense or on a kick return, the jolt which has been missing in the first three games. Anything to help this offense - and relieve it of the need to have to do all the point producing - could be massive for the Razorbacks. A formula involving 17 offensive points plus 10 points produced by the defense and special teams could lift the Hogs over the top. They probably will need at least one very huge play from non-offensive sources if they expect to win here. A pick-six, a fumble return, a blocked kick, anything in one of those baskets will do.
If Arkansas doesn't get one of those plays, the other possible path to victory will simply be the defense clamping down on Tulsa for 60 minutes and creating an ugly game in which the Hogs live in the mud and survive simply by making the Golden Hurricane play worse. A 13-12 or 12-10 win could be the way Arkansas posts a win in this one.
It's not going to be pretty. You're not suddenly going to see this punchless offense come to life against a good Tulsa defense. You'll either need to see a defensive touchdown and a kick return power UA to a 27-point game in spite of its offensive limitations, or you'll need to see a total rockfight in which the winning team doesn't score more than 13-16 points. Let's see if Arkansas can win in the mud. Hogs have been known to do that, after all.
