Jeff Reed: Red Wolves Need Time to Mend for ‘Real Season’

 

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A third of the way through the Arkansas State Red Wolves’ football season the team sits 2-2 at the break.

Not playing until next weekend against Louisiana-Monroe, the Red Wolves are about where they were expected to be at this point.

A look back at the games at Tennessee and at Miami and you could easily see where A-State could have won those games. No doubt, they were there for the taking, but the scoring drive that was needed to get back into the game and put pressure on the home teams never came.

The near spotless efforts needed to win those contests were not in the books.

And a spotless effort the last weekend against Utah State was not in the books either. But somehow a victory was.

Arkansas State committed four turnovers and was outgained by a little more than 100 yards. Where the Red Wolves did win the game was with defense and the special teams.

At 2-2, Utah State is a good football team and a strong program and in a lot of ways mirrored the one in Jonesboro. Coming into the game, the two schools had won 29 games over the past three-plus seasons, putting them in the Top 25 for all FBS programs and in the top five among Group of Five schools.

Sometimes programs just win because they are used to winning. A guest on a Little Rock-based radio show said the game was not significant for the first 55 minutes but what happened in those final 5 left the folks in red and black in a jovial mood.

Trailing 14-7, Arkansas State capped a 10-play, 66-yard drive with a 4-yard run from Johnston White with 4:58 remaining.

The Red Wolves defense holds, forcing a punt and A-State starts a march toward a potential winning score until Fredi Knighten’s fumble, his second of the night and third in last two games, was recovered at the ASU38 with 47 seconds left.

Suddenly a major mood swing for the announced crowd of 29,029.

Six plays later, with the Aggies at the A-State 21, the same site where the ball was sitting on the final play of the Go-Daddy Bowl back in January. A like that final field goal attempt in that game, this one was blocked as well.  Unlike in the Go-Daddy where Ryan Carrethers bulled his way up the middle to save the night for the Red Wolves, Newport senior Artez Brown came off the corner and dove and got both hands on it for the block to force overtime.

“Every day we practice a field goal block and our coaches always talk about coming off the edges very hard and having a chance at blocking it so I just took that chance and it ended up happening,’’ said Brown. 

Knighten turned hero when he hit Dijon Paschal with a 24-yard scoring pass on the second play of overtime.

And then on defense, Money Hunter and Charleston Girley, playing with a cast on his arm that will require season-ending surgery, collided with an Aggie receiver on fourth down, knocked the ball loose, making everyone in red and black happy.

So with a week off, the Red Wolves need time to mend. There are already four players out for the season and linebacker Q Lee is playing with a rib injury. The good news is Anderson expects running back Michael Gordon and tight end Kenneth Rains back. Gordon has missed two games and Rains has been out since the opening night victory over Montana State.

The real season starts against ULM, the first of eight conference games. 

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Jeff Reed is editor of Astatenation.com

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Arkansas State University football team’s Sun Belt Conference (SBC) opener next Saturday, Oct. 4, versus Louisiana-Monroe (ULM) will be televised live on ESPN3.

A 6 p.m. (CT) opening kickoff is slated for the Red Wolves’ conference-opening and annual Homecoming contest versus the Warhawks at Centennial Bank Stadium in Jonesboro, Ark.

ESPN3 is a 24/7 sports network offering live and replayed events.  ESPN3 is available on over 300 affiliated service providers including AT&T, Bright House, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DISH, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.  The network is also available at no cost to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers, smartphones and tablets connected to on-campus educational and on-base military broadband and Wi-Fi networks.

The network is currently available to more than 92 million homes at no additional cost to fans receiving their high-speed internet connection or video subscription from an affiliated service provider.

ESPN3 is accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPNapp and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast {via the WatchESPN app}, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

A-State, which is idle this weekend, currently sports a 2-2 overall record this season after registering a thrilling 21-14 overtime non-conference victory over Utah State this last Saturday (Sept. 20) evening in an ESPN3 televised game at Centennial Bank Stadium in Jonesboro.  The Red Wolves, under first-year head coach Blake Anderson, are the defending three-time (2011-13) Sun Belt Conference Champions.

red wolves on break


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