Video from Arkansas State head coach Steve Roberts press conference in Little Rock on Thursday. Coach Roberts discusses Texas Southern and Texas A&M for members of the Little Rock media at Central Flying Service.

Funny what a big win does for interest. Latest release from ASU.

JONESBORO (9/1/08) – After leading the Arkansas State football team to a season-opening victory over Texas A&M last Saturday, Red Wolves head coach Steve Roberts will appear on a pair of radio shows in Little Rock and Memphis Tuesday.

Roberts first live interview will be at 8:05 a.m. on Sports 56’s (WHBQ 560 AM in Memphis) “Sportstime” radio show, hosted by George Lapides and Dave Woloshin.

Roberts’ second radio interview will begin at 10:47 a.m. on The Buzz’s (KABZ 103.7 FM in Little Rock) “The Zone” sports-talk show, hosted by Justin Acri, Pat Bradley and Joe Franklin.

Season tickets and individual tickets for ASU’s five home games this season remain on sale at the ASU Ticket Office. For more information, contact the ASU Ticket Office at 870-972-ASU1 or the Red Wolf Club at 870-972-2401. Ticket information can also be found online at astateredwolves.com.

Prairie View A&M 34 Texas Southern 14-TSU ran for only 5 net yards, giving up five sacks in the process.

Southern Mississippi 51 Louisiana Lafayette 21-Quarterback Austin Davis passed for two touchdowns and ran for two more while Damion Fletcher ran for 222 yards and the Golden Eagles notched 30 first downs in an easy win over ULL.

Troy 31 Middle Tennessee 17-Troy went on the road with a new quarterback and relied heavily on their ground game to control the ball and the Blue Raiders. DuJuan Harris ran for 148 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Mississippi 41 Memphis 24-The Tigers moved the ball, posting 28 first downs and 453 yards on offense. Starter Arkelon Hall and Will Hudgens split time at quarterback, with Hudgens logging the more productive minutes, passing for two touchdowns.

#10 Auburn 34 Louisiana Monroe 0

#24 Alabama 34 Clemson 20-The Crimson Tide dominated with a well balanced attack. John Parker Wilson turned in one of his best performances at quarterback.

#14 Kansas 40 Florida International 10

#11 Texas 52 Florida Atlantic 10-The Owls defense gave up 503 yards and could muster no ground game of their own. Rusty Smith passed for 253 yards, nearly all of it coming outside the red zone.

Kansas State 45 North Texas 6

Beating Texas A&M is without question the most notable victory in the history of the Arkansas State football program. What is left is determine just how meaningful it is outside our family. We will always cherish this game but the nation at large will form much of its opinion in the weeks to come.

A win like this has to have context. Look no further than two Sun Belt victories last season, FAU over Minnesota and ULM over Alabama. Anyone with any football knowledge knows that from a historic standpoint and a viewpoint of the quality of the teams in 2007, the ULM win was bigger. Yet if you read t he pre-season magazines, the FAU win over Minnesota is treated as being as good or even better.

Why? Context.
Read the rest of this entry »

Wow what a night. Honest to goodness I feel hung over and never had anything stronger than a Diet Coke. Here come your round-up articles.

AS360 blogs the win with the ABC comments. Also has the AP game story.

Houston Chronicle leads the way with this game story. Also the transcript of their live game blog with reader comments, funny read, most similar defeat in Aggie history? 77-0 to Oklahoma.

San Antonio Express-News game story. Sherman doesn’t blame his kicker for missing two, but notes he was distracted by family evacuating Louisiana and he should have made those.

Dallas Morning News has a game story as well. Nice set of photos from the game. Have to scroll through other game comments but also a blog transcript from during the game. Several entries well worth reading.

My favorite headline. Aggies Big Debut Fed To Red Wolves, from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. They also had a live blog, another fun read though without all the panic.

The online Dem-Gaz still has Saturday’s stories.

Nothing else to say tonight

Todd Traub of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has an article on maintaining poise and composure in a hostile environment. He recaps some highlights of Arkansas State’s last visit to Kyle Field and the experience gained at Texas last season (oddly enough not the experience gained before the massive crowd at Tennessee).

The Houston Chronicle features Texas A&M quarterback Stephen McGee. The Aggie QB expects Mike Sherman’s offense to be a better fit and to help open the possibility of an NFL future.

The San Antonio Express-News looks at the Aggie secondary. Texas A&M is expected to try to get much more QB pressure than last season under new defensive coordinator Joe Kines.

The My San Antonio Aggie blog produced by the Express-News has a piece on Texas A&M kicker Richie Bean and the hurricane approaching his home town, New Orleans. Also a piece on Lane practicing with the team. Link is worth checking because there may be additional content added during the day.

One to keep an eye on is the Houston Chronicle Aggie blog. Based on their sports page it looks like there will be live updates during the ASU game. Other than that, no new news there at this point.

PREDICTION?:
I’ve been mulling the idea of a game prediction all week and just don’t have one. Arkansas State has been looking for a good signature win for some time and you have to like many of the elements present. Problem is you just can’t know how well they have down their new offense and defense and can’t know how well ASU is going to adjust to what actually happens. I was leaning toward a pick of the Aggies in the 10 point area and then watched SMU-Rice. When SMU seemed to be clawing back into the game they made two mistakes that in seconds turned the game into a rout. I’m just not confident that ASU will exploit any Aggie mistakes nor that ASU won’t have critical killer mistakes like last season’s opener.

I predict I’m ready for kickoff and will leave it at that.

Busy morning.

ArkansasSports360 has a nice piece on the ASU experience with the atmosphere at Texas A&M.

The Battalion at Texas A&M advises readers to expect a lot of explosive running from the Aggies AND the Red Wolves.

Another article from The Battalion calling Reggie Arnold a bowling ball. Actually Coach Roberts called him that.

One note missing from all the previews. It’s governor alma mater game. Arkansas governor Mike Beebe is of course an alum of ASU and Texas governor Rick Perry is a Texas A&M alum (and former yell leader).

Are you ready?

It’s the worst day of the year.

The longest day of the year.

The day before the first Arkansas State football game is in my opinion the longest most miserable day of the year.

It’s been three months since the last ASU baseball game. Almost six months since the last ASU basketball game. Seven months since signing day for football. NINE MONTHS SINCE THE LAST ASU FOOTBALL GAME!!!

We’ve lived through three dead months of mostly repeating the same stuff on the message boards. Three months of getting our football fix from the latest previews to trickle in and they all basically say the same thing. Gotta replace the secondary, gotta replace the offensive line, Leonard and Arnold have to stay healthy. We knew all that back in…. November when we first started thinking about this season.

All this time fighting boredom and getting excited about the return of the best time of year. All this time getting hopes built up and the anticipation growing. But first we have to stagger through Friday.

It’s worse than being seven and waiting for Christmas.

Making it worse, its the Friday before a long holiday weekend. For most people, work or school will be slow on Friday because people are getting ready to try to sneak out early. A slow work day seems that much slower because its the day you have to get past to get to the start of the ASU season.

Ugh. I don’t know how we make it through the first pre-game Friday each year but I’m already ready for it to be over.

Video from today’s press conference at the Holiday Inn Presidential in Little Rock. Coach Roberts talks about the season and Texas A&M.