Mateos Details Relationship With Petrino, Most Important Factor To Win In SEC

Mateos looks to rebuild offensive line under Petrino mindset

Arkansas Razorbacks offensive line coach Eric Mateos during spring practice in March on the indoor practice field in Fayetteville, Ark. / Andy Hodges-allHOGS Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When Eric Mateos was hired as the new offensive line coach it required an adjustment period. There wasn’t much continuity offensively with Bobby Petrino coming as offensive coordinator. Petrino’s influence brings in a different scheme, new looks, protections and more.

It’s still football and coaches can learn to work together for the good of its team. Mateos has been around college football awhile and should be familiar by now with working under different coordinators. Since 2016 he has served in assistant roles with Texas State, LSU (tight ends) and became a household name during his time with BYU and Baylor. Both units with the Cougars and Bears were up for the Joe Moore Award given annually to the nations top O-Line. 

Anyone expecting this Arkansas team to rapidly ascend near the top of college football lore very soon should temper their expectations. The 2024 season will be a tough one to predict with the changes amongst coaching staff, key players gone and so many new faces in town.

Mateos met with the men of Coaches and the Mouth Podcast which was released Friday to discuss the changes inside the football program. All the new faces means becoming used to Petrino’s way. Mateos worked with Pittman as his graduate assistant from 2013-2015 and knows how his boss likes to call things. Then again Petrino also likes to call his own way. With Petrino’s hand firmly on the offense, it’ll be his way with coaches learning tendencies utilizing over 500 plays.

“Sometimes I felt like the in between,” Mateos said. “I know how Pittman likes to call things. Learning Coach Petrino’s terminology, ‘how can I form this to where everyone feels comfortable?’ with where the offense is at least in my world which is protections and runs.”

“It’s kind of a crazy process because you start big,” Mateos said. “We basically put every play that Coach Petrino has run on the board, 500 plays or something. Routes, protections, runs and everything like that. You’re looking at those things and then basically saying ‘we’ve got to teach this staff and he’s got to teach it to us.’”

“A lot of the stuff is what I was familiar with. Some is what we’ve run here in the past and what I’ve run in the past. Some of it was totally new. Much of it was protections that I’ve never run before. So, I was like ‘I better get up and study because you can’t teach something if you don’t know it.’ That’s was a big sense of urgency from me. I better know it so the boys can know it.”

Like many of the other offensive staff, learning took place throughout the winter conditioning program and into spring practice. Mateos said there were multiple nights that he would be given something new to learn in order to be prepared. An ultimate professional, he wants to prove himself in the toughest conference in college football to compete in. Likewise, Petrino is and always will be meticulous with his preparation and expects his assistants all the way down to support staff to be ready to win the day. 

“It was a really fun process and [Petrino] has been great to work with,” Mateos said. 

Going into the offseason, it was expected that Arkansas would need to groom at least three new starters along the line. Mateos led the charge to land highly regarded transfers such as Keyshawn Blackstock (Michigan State), Fernando Carmona (San Jose State) and Addison Nichols (Tennessee) during the winter portal window. 

The unit as a whole was going to be learning on the fly. It didn’t take long for new concepts to be taught, according to Mateos.

“We probably taught 90% of the run techniques and about 50% of protections,” Mateos said. “Really we just dove in and learned the run techniques because there’s carry over in scheme because there’s carry over from different schemes.”

In the not so distant past, Arkansas was able to effectively run the football under Pittman. During the 2021 and 2022 seasons, the Razorbacks led power conference teams or finished in the top ten in rushing offense. Even if Arkansas fails it won’t be due to Mateos’ determination alone. He wants to win football games and understands his unit needs to be its best to be successful in the SEC this fall.

“Here’s the deal, if you want to win in this league you’ve got to run the football. If you can’t you’re going to have a long year,” Mateos reinforced.

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