SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — This season OzarksFirst’s Dan Lucy will sit down with Bobby Petrino to recap the week and look ahead to the next game.

Here is the conversation following the win against UT Martin and looking ahead to Arkansas.

Dan Lucy: The fifth ranked Missouri State Bears going for a much-anticipated trip to Arkansas. Coach you had been there for four seasons, but it’s been 11 years since you’ve been back there. Talk a little bit about returning to Fayetteville.

Bobby Petrino: Yeah, I think it’ll be exciting for our team. You know, we’re going in to play a really good football team. They’ve got good players on offense, good players on defense, an elite quarterback and elite running back. So it’s certainly a great challenge for us, but it’ll be a tremendous atmosphere. It’ll be a lot of fun. I think our players are excited to have a good week of practice and then and then go in there and play as hard as we possibly can.

Dan Lucy: So you’ve got the fifth ranked team in FCS and the 10th ranked team in the country and FBS. Looking back at the win over the (Ut Martin) Skyhawks, Jason Shelley, five touchdowns a Mahomes-like performance who had five touchdowns as well. But you got your Jacardia Wright involved as well. Talk a little bit about the importance of that.

Bobby Petrino: Yeah, I thought it was a good offensive night. You know, we were able to run the ball and Jacardia did a good job of breaking tackles. We did a much better job of blocking the front and moving the ball around. And then Jason made some huge plays, especially when the pressure was on. You know, that’s what was really nice to see was Ty Scott, Jason (Shelley), (Jahod) Booker, all making a lot of plays when the pressure was on for us to have to go score.

Dan Lucy: Defensively looked pretty good, but there were some penalties that kind of put you guys behind the eight ball a little bit. I know that’s something you weren’t happy with.

Bobby Petrino: Yeah, it wasn’t one of our best defensive performances. We had communication problems. We had some alignment issues. They were working tempo. We weren’t getting it communicated all the way across the field. That hurt us a couple times. And then we did have some 15 yard penalties that you just can’t have. You just can’t give a good offense, free yardage.

Dan Lucy: You look at the 10th ranked Razorbacks. What is the main thing that kind of concerns you the most? What’s the key that you have to do to be able to pull that upset down there?

Bobby Petrino: Well, they’ve got a big offensive line and they block the front very well. They got a huge quarterback that can throw it and run and they’ve got a big running back that breaks a lot of tackles. So I think for us to have an opportunity, we’re going to have to stop the run or control the run and not give them the big plays and be able to tackle. You know, they break a lot of tackles, they get a lot of yards after contact. So that’s going to be a big, you know, emphasis force throughout the week.

Dan Lucy: Coach, I appreciate it. Good luck against Arkansas at Saturday night down in Fayetteville, going up against an FBS school.

Bobby Petrino: Thank you, Dan.

Missouri State and Arkansas will kick at 6 pm on Saturday in Fayetteville.