Arkansas State's Biggest Win
By Carl Danbury (Posted Sept. 3, 2008)

The opening weekend’s biggest upset in college football wasn’t East Carolina beating Virginia Tech, nor UCLA’s disposing of Tennessee in overtime or even Utah winning at Ann Arbor in Rich Rodriguez’s coming out party at the University of Michigan. Please don’t even think about including Alabama’s annihilation of Clemson, and until you can show some proof that Dave Wannstedt’s Pitt Panthers deserved to be ranked 25th in the pre-season polls, don’t bring Bowling Green’s upset at Heinz Field in here either.

The biggest shocker was the Arkansas State Red Wolves’ 18-14 victory at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas on Saturday night. Former Packers’ head coach Mike Sherman took over the reins for Texas A&M and his Aggies proved that they have a long road ahead of them as they try to rebuild the mess left to them by former head coach Dennis Franchione, who has once again proven that he can do more to disrupt a college football program than a Category 3 hurricane.

Head coach Steve Roberts led the Red Wolves to the biggest upset in Arkansas State football history. Consider the Red Wolves’ history against major college opponents from the SEC and Big 12 prior to Saturday night’s shocker. Arkansas State was 0-26-1 since 1992 against those two power conferences, losing by an average margin of 39-11. The lone positive was a 15-15 tie against way back in 1993 against Miss. State. Throw in a couple other defeats at the hands of Big Ten schools and fans in Jonesboro have suffered like they were from Jonestown when facing quality competition outside the Sun Belt Conference.

While the Red Wolves (the school’s mascot was changed from the Indians in March 2007) has played competitively against Ole Miss in the past, the only inkling that Arkansas State was ready to upset a BCS opponent might have come last year when the Red Wolves played competitively against the University of Texas in Austin, dropping a 21-13 early-season decision.

"I think there is a lot of parity in college football and it comes down to how you play on any given Saturday," Roberts told SportsUnlimited. "Obviously, last year at Texas we left there with a loss, and it’s hard to say that you can draw confidence from a loss, but we did have a lot of things that we could build off of for the rest of last season and this season. We feel like we have good players and in our minds this is in no way a dream or anything like that. We earned a victory and our kids deserved it for the effort that they put forth to get that victory [against A&M]."

Roberts’ crew, which was installed as a 19-point underdog going into Saturday night’s tilt, outgained the Aggies 415 to 303 and forced four turnovers. The Red Wolves’ starting quarterback Corey Leonard managed the game brilliantly despite losing one fumble and finished the game with 246 total yards. Running back Reggie Arnold punished the Aggies’ defense with 145 yards on 21 carries leading the Red Wolves to a time of possession advantage of nearly seven minutes for the game. The Red Wolves averaged 10.7 per completion and 5.7 yards per carry against A&M.

"It wasn’t a fluke, or that we capitalized on a bunch of gifts or anything like that," Roberts related. "We won the game. I felt that we matched up very well with them pretty much across the board."

A sign of good things to come for Arkansas State occurred on its first possession, as it took the opening kickoff, converting two third-downs and one fourth down on the way to a 37-yard field goal by Josh Arauco, who made all four of his attempts.

Despite trailing 14-3 at the half, the visitors managed to hang tough in front of the 78,691 fans who showed up expecting a Sherman march to victory.

Amazingly, four of five Red Wolves' starters on the offensive line are new this season, as is the entire defensive secondary, according to Roberts.

"I wouldn’t classify us as an experienced team, other than the fact that we do have experience in a few key positions."

One of those experienced players is Arnold, who turned down the University of Arkansas with its crowded backfield and headed to Jonesboro instead.

"We actually recruited Reggie Arnold," said former Razorbacks' head coach Houston Nutt, now at Ole Miss. "He came to our camp and we thought we had him. He’s a great young man. He just didn’t feel like he was going to get enough playing time with the backs we had loaded up at the time (Darren McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hilis), so he opted to go to Arkansas State to have the opporutnity to play as a freshman."

Arnold rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first two seasons at Arkansas State. He gained 130 yards in Knoxville last year against the SEC East champion Volunteers.

State took its first lead with just 4:39 left in the game when Leonard hit receiver Kevin Jones with a 15-yard scoring strike giving the Red Wolves a 15-14 lead. The Red Wolves forced another Aggie turnover and Arauco connected again to pad the lead to four points. A&M managed just four first downs in the second half. Another turnover on the Aggies’ final possession sealed their fate and the Red Wolves joined their Sun Belt cohorts Troy, Louisiana-Monroe and Florida Atlantic to have beaten members of BCS conferences.

ULM head coach Charlie Weatherbie said such victories are helpful in recruiting and give players confidence.

“Arkansas State going in and beating Texas A&M is a great feat for Arkansas State as well as this conference. It gives the conference credibility,” Weatherbie said. “When you beat somebody like that, it gives your name an opportunity to get out there nationwide. People now know who the Red Wolves are. They know who the Warhawks are.”

Roberts agreed.

"I think it changes your program from a confidence standpoint internally, and from a perception standpoint externally. I think those two areas are dramatically affected. There is no doubt in my mind that it benefits our university community and our entire community here."

While Roberts recognizes the importance of the victory, he hopes his players can move beyond this one accomplishment.

"The key is getting a 17-, 18-, 19-year old man to move forward. We’ve brought several aspects of what has happened in the past to the forefront. Everybody in the country knows that Appalachian State beat Michigan, but they probably don’t know that Wofford beat Appalachian State a couple weeks later," Roberts offered. "So, we don’t want to have that kind of game on our schedule.

"We had two big wins for our conference last year, with Monroe beating Alabama and Troy beating Oklahoma State, but neither of those teams finished where they wanted to, and that’s in a bowl game at the end of the year. Our goal is to make sure we use it [the win] as a building block, not as a defining moment for this season," he added.

After three September home games beginning with Texas Southern Saturday night, the Red Wolves play six of their next eight games on the road, and five of their final six away from home. During that stretch, Arkansas State will visit Memphis, Alabama and Troy.

"There is no doubt, that we play difficult schedules here at Arkansas State, some of the most difficult in the country," Roberts stated. "We’ve had years where we only had four home games and eight games on the road. We’ve had years where we played 13 games in less than 13 weeks."

While it might sound cliche, Roberts said the most important game is one you're playing next Saturday, but in the hierarchy of importance are home games and conference games.

"As a competitor, every game is important. I don’t want to diminish that at all, but we’ve got to win at home and win our conference games in order to meet our goals. And, that is to win a conference championship and represent our conference in a bowl game," he said, while adding that the school's appearance in the New Orleans Bowl in 2005 was a memorable occasion.

"To win the school’s first conference championship in more than 20 years and the first Division I-A bowl game in the history of this institution was a big deal and something we’re trying to get back to," Roberts said.

It's tough to utilize the word rebound because the Red Wolves are exiting a victory rather than a loss, but victories of this magnitude could derail teams that haven't experienced this kind of hype before. Perhaps the answer lies in what the coaching staff instills in their players.

"I don’t know if any player on our team can outperform our expectations. We set very high expectations for our kids. Obviously, we were very pleased with a lot of stuff they did [at Texas A&M], but there are a ton of things we have to improve upon if we’re going to continue winning football games," Roberts added.

Author's Note:

When asked if there was one thing that he would want people to know about his team, Roberts replied:

"I hope you know about the academic success of our football program. We won an academic award from our conference for four out of the last five years. We have a 25 percent higher graduation rate than the rest of the student body here at Arkansas State. We are one of only 34 schools in the country in I-A football that had over a 70 percent graduation rate, and we had the fifth highest increase in the nation in the graduation rate of African-American students. I hope more people know about that, because that is what will ultimately lead to more productive lives for the young men we have the opportunity to establish relationships with."