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It has been a long time since Ouachita Baptist has been in the position it is going into Saturday's massive game with Southeastern Oklahoma State.
Before East Central (Okla.) kicker Gabriel Ogura nailed a 24-yard field on the final play to upset the Tigers 24-22 last week, OBU hadn't dropped a season-opening game since Sept. 2, 2006. On that day, Missouri Southern walked out of Fred G. Hughes Stadium in Joplin, Mo., with a 38-22 win.
That loss was the precursor to a 2-8 season for the Tigers -- one of the very few campaigns that they have finished worse than .500 under Coach Todd Knight. OBU responded to that setback with a thrashing of East Texas Baptist the following week, and it intends to do the same in its home opener against the Savage Storm.
"It was just a tough game for us," Knight said of his team's loss a week ago. "We certainly didn't play our best. But I'll be honest with you, sometimes it's good to be hit in the mouth because you get the chance to see how you respond.
"Of course you don't ever want to lose a football game, but it'll be good for us. We've rallied already actually."
Knight said his Tigers have had spirited practice sessions leading up to their date with Southeastern Oklahoma State (1-0, 1-0 Great American Conference), which has seemingly always given them a tough time under Bo Atterberry's guidance. But OBU (0-1, 0-1) needs to recover because it is in a precarious situation.
Although it's early in the season, the Tigers can ill-afford to fall much further in the conference standings, especially with an improving Arkansas Tech team, led by their former defensive coordinator Roy Thompson, and Harding, ranked No. 2 in the American Football Coaches Association Division II poll, on the docket for their next two games.
But there is good news and bad news about the predicament that OBU is in. History does favor OBU to bounce back because it has won the second game of a season in 17 of the previous 18 years.
That's the good news. The bad news is the program that handed the Tigers their lone defeat in Week 2 over that nearly two-decade stretch is the same one it's facing Saturday.
The Savage Storm, who are coming off a 44-13 victory over the University of Arkansas at Monticello, have experienced some success in Arkadelphia against the Tigers, beating them in 2017 and 2021.
"It always starts with Bo," Knight said. "He's a fantastic coach, he really is. His teams always play with a lot of toughness, and they're very disciplined. We know they're going to play hard, too.
"You have to be able to match all of that. They were able to run the football pretty good (versus UAM), and they played really solid defense. Special teams is always solid for them as well."
Southeastern Oklahoma State ran for more than 200 yards against UAM and three players scored rushing touchdowns, but it also got timely completions from quarterback Luke Hohenberger. The Tigers erased an early deficit to beat the Savage Storm last year, but they don't want to have to do the same this time.
They found themselves trailing after the first quarter and early in the fourth against East Central before storming back. OBU took a 22-21 lead on a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown from Carter McElhany with 12:49 left in the game. The Tigers were in a good spot after coming up with a late turnover inside East Central's 40-yard line with less than six minutes to play, but mistakes forced their hand.
"We picked the ball off at the end, and we're about to go score, but we get a holding penalty," Knight said. "That backed us up, and it's too far for us to go for it on fourth down. It's a little too far to kick the field goal, and you don't want to take the chance on a block being up by one.
"So we make a decision, and they ended up driving the field and kicking a last-second field goal."
Knight revealed that overall consistency in all three phases -- offense, defense and special teams -- was OBU's biggest problem in the loss, but he expects his team to shake that off and perform the way it routinely does in big games.
"Wins come in the little things that you do every day," he said. "Our guys have been focused on doing their job, trying to improve and really, just playing at a higher level. There's never a rebuild year here because expectation is to have a great team, and a great team starts with playing one game at a time.
"We've got good players, good kids. They'll respond, and our coaches will, too. Teams that improve those first three weeks of the season are usually the teams that are good at the end."