Troy vs Arkansas State
It is the real season now.
What happens the next two weeks will most likely determine if the Arkansas State Red Wolves go bowling for the third straight year.
Going into tonight’s 6:30 kickoff at Liberty Bank Stadium the Arkansas State Red Wolves are about where most expected at 1-1. Yes there was a chance to defeated Auburn, but the Tigers had to give A-State some help and that didn’t happen.
So we are at 1-1 and where do we go from here?
Last week we noted that the next two games are the biggest of the season for Arkansas State, for multiple reasons. First off, you just want to win, stating the obvious, every game you play. That gets the Red Wolves to 3-1 going to Missouri, an SEC team they match up a lot better with than Auburn, with momentum.
That is best case scenario.
Tonight’s Troy game and the Memphis game in 10 days just might be the make-or-break point for this season.
Troy is the Sun Belt opener for a team that has won 15 of its last 16 league games. A-State showed last year that it can drop the league opener (vs. Western Kentucky) and survive but the way the schedule falls that is not a desired start.
Memphis will be ready for Red Wolves 10 days after the Troy contest. The Tigers have lost four of their last five to ASU, a couple of them in very painful style.
The Memphis game is big for recruiting. While the Tigers can boast of having a better-known football conference the reality of its they have not been able to get past Sun Belt members ASU and Middle Tennessee, which has not moved on to Conference-USA.
ASU would be 3-1 in two weeks.
You can also see 1-3 if things don’t go right.
There are still a lot of questions out there. No doubt the game plan called for a vanilla performance in the victory over UAPB.
And it is hard to evaluate what happened against Auburn. The final numbers were pretty close to being even statistically, but the truth was the Red Wolves had trouble running between the tackles and there was very little attacking on the flanks.
The expectations are things will change, starting tonight.
I expect the full playbook will be in use.
And we will see what that brings.
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Jeff Reed (@ASUJeffReed) is editor of astatenation.com. His column appears at Sporting Life Arkansas weekly.
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