Arkansas gets one more tune-up before the difficult part of the schedule (that is, the rest of it) starts. Unfortunately, this “tune-up” is no cupcake.
Meet the Red Wolves
We’re finally “meeting” the Red Wolves. It’s a day many thought would never come. They’re not really our brothers from the other side of the state – that implies a close family relationship – so they’re more like our little cousins from the other side of the state who we never see and have nothing to talk about with at Thanksgiving.
Many Arkansas fans have passively rooted for the Red Wolves in recent years. That will end if this becomes a game that’s played on any kind of regular basis, which is kind of a shame. This state doesn’t produce enough talent or money to have its only two FBS programs at odds with each other, but for some reason people have insisted on it, mainly citing a “keep the money in the state” theory that reveals a lack of understanding of economics.
Early history
Arkansas State’s football history has been mostly bleak. State first achieved success in the 1980s under head coach Larry Lacewell, best known for his later tenure as Director of Scouting for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s. Lacewell led the Red Wolves (then known as the Indians) to four FCS (then known as Division I-AA) playoff appearances, including reaching the 1986 FCS championship game.
State made the leap to the FBS in 1992. The first 20 years were unkind to State, who struggled for a while to find a permanent conference before coming an inaugural member of the Sun Belt in 2001. They reached just one bowl game before 2011: the 2005 New Orleans Bowl. The tenure of Steve Roberts (2002-2010) is generally regarded as setting the foundation for the success that followed.
In 2011, State began a remarkable run-up from doormat to lower-major competitor. It started with the hiring of Hugh Freeze, who at the time was best-known as the real-life high school coach in the recent hit film The Blind Side (2009). Freeze’s team went 10-3 in 2011 and won the school’s first Sun Belt title before he was hired at Ole Miss (to replace the fired Houston Nutt, because the coaching world is small). The Red Wolves then hit another home run, hiring Auburn OC Gus Malzahn, who also went 10-3 and won a Sun Belt title in his lone season before heading straight back to Auburn. In 2013, the Red Wolves were led by Boise State OC Bryan Harsin, who delivered a third straight conference title and a third straight one-and-done season, heading back to Boise after an 8-5 season. By the end, the three one-and-dones had delivered Arkansas State’s first three Sun Belt titles and put the Red Wolves on the college football map. Curiously, all three of those coaches also ended up coaching at Auburn, with Freeze completing the trifecta with his hiring after Harsin was fired to end the 2023 season.
Blake Anderson
Stability returned with the hiring of North Carolina OC Blake Anderson in 2014. He didn’t win the Sun Belt in his first season, but he won two Sun Belt titles (2015 and 2016) and ultimately went 51-37 (38-18 Sun Belt), reaching bowl games in his first five seasons. The tragic death of his wife from cancer in August 2019 marked a substantial shift in his tenure, and he left for a fresh start at Utah State after a 4-7 season in 2020, his only losing season and State’s first since 2010.
Butch Jones
The hiring of Butch Jones linked up a coach and a program with a lot to prove. State wanted to prove that its breakthrough in the 2010s was no fluke, and Jones wanted to prove that he’s actually a good coach, not a fiery punchline.
Jones had followed Brian Kelly at both Central Michigan and Cincinnati, winning by maintaining what his predecessor had built. He replaced Derek Dooley at Tennessee after the 2012 season. His five-year tenure wasn’t awful – the Vols rebuilt quickly from the disastrous Dooley era and had back-to-back 9-win seasons in 2015 and 2016 – but they struggled against Tennessee’s biggest rivals (Alabama, Georgia, Florida), didn’t win the SEC East, and sank to 4-6 in 2017, leading to a in-season axe for Jones. Jones’s hot-headed personality and constant corny sloganeering (namely his signature “brick by brick” motto) were frequently mocked by college football fans and media.
After spending three seasons (2018-2020) as an “analyst” in Nick Saban’s coaching rehabilitation program at Alabama, Jones was ready for his relaunch in Jonesboro. His initial plan seems to have been to use his name recognition to land power conference cast-offs and accumulate more talent than his Sun Belt peers. After attempting to hire Major Applewhite as his OC (another big reputation in need of some rehab), he ended up retaining Anderson’s OC, Keith Heckendorf, who is still there.
The first big fish as part of his cast-off plan was Florida State transfer quarterback James Blackman, a former 4-star recruit who had started several games for the Noles. It was a bizarre signing, however, because State already had a QB1: Layne Hatcher, the former record-setter at Pulaski Academy who was the Red Wolf starter in 2019 and 2020. Hatcher and Blackman were forced into a strange two-QB system that benefitted no one. The Red Wolves went 2-10 – their worst season since 2000 – and Hatcher transferred after the season. The Jones era was off to the worst start imaginable.
The Blackman signing never did pay off. With him as sole starter in 2022, the Red Wolves went just 3-9. Jones entered 2023 on the hot seat, having squandered almost all of State’s momentum. To save things, Jones and Heckendorf turned the offense over to true freshman Jaylen Raynor, and it proved to be a momentum-shifting move. The State offense was massively improved in 2023 as State went 6-7 and reached a bowl. Last year almost got off to a disastrous start, as State had to escape Central Arkansas 35-31 with a controversial touchdown as time expired (I’m being nice: the Bears were robbed), but the Red Wolves ended up with an 8-5 season and Jones’s first bowl win.
Despite his 20-31 record in Jonesboro, Jones’s seat is much cooler than it was in 2023. His program was picked to finish third in the Sun Belt and Raynor is one of the top quarterbacks in the Group of Five. But he still needs a signature win to get his program (back) on the college football map. State fans still remember their program’s upset of Texas A&M back in 2008 as a precursor to the era that followed. A win over Arkansas? Biggest in school history, no doubt. Jones would be well on his way to a statue outside of Centennial Bank Stadium.
State opened the 2025 campaign with a 42-24 thrashing of Southeast Missouri, a decent FCS team. The Red Wolves put up 492 yards of offense but allowed nearly 400 to the Red Hawks.
Given the major motivation mismatch, the Hogs should probably expect the Red Wolves to play one of their best games of the year. If the Razorbacks play anything worse than decently, they could be in trouble.
When Arkansas State has the ball
Schematically, the Red Wolves have run essentially the same classic Big XII spread offense for more than a decade, since Anderson brought it with him when he was hired in 2014. It is yet another version of the Art Briles veer-and-shoot offense that Arkansas ran under former OC Kendal Briles from 2020 to 2022. This version comes through Larry Fedora, a former Briles assistant at Baylor who is best-known for his time as UNC’s head coach from 2012 to 2018.
Like all variations of the Briles offense, it features a relatively simple playbook with easy reads for the quarterback, and uses wide spacing, tempo, RPOs, and vertical passing to isolate defenders and create 1-on-1 matchups through the air and light boxes on the ground. The primary objective is to force the defense to use two-deep safeties, allowing the offense to run power against six-man boxes.
Heckendorf originally came with Anderson to coach tight ends, before returning to Chapel Hill for four seasons. He was the quarterbacks coach for Mitch Trubisky in that time, so he knows a thing or two about developing quarterbacks. In Raynor, he has a gem. The junior threw for 5,300 yards and 33 touchdowns over his first two seasons in Jonesboro, and he opened the 2025 season by going 26 of 32 for 345 yards in the win over SEMO.
A simple scheme means confident reads for a veteran quarterback. You’ll see lots of stuff that looks similar to the Kendal Briles era at Arkansas, like this nice little RPO that pairs a run with a slant:
If you can’t pressure Raynor, he’ll carve you up. He’s not an elite deep ball thrower, but he’s definitely capable, like on this bomb to a receiver in a 1-on-1 matchup out of a clean pocket:
SEMO couldn’t pressure him, logging just four pressures and zero sacks. But opponents were able to pressure him last year. He faced 163 pressures, which is similar to Taylen Green’s 177, despite the fact that he gets rid of the ball much faster than Green (2.71 seconds per throw versus 3.19 for Green). He took 32 sacks and had eight passes batted at the line (he’s only 6’0). Arkansas’ pass rush will be a pretty significant factor.
The receiving corps is led by sixth-year senior Corey Rucker, who has played a lot of football. For his career, he has 183 catches for 3,138 yards and 25 touchdowns. He caught that 50-yard bomb in the clip above, and deep balls are his specialty. He’s spent his entire career in Jonesboro except for 2022, when he transferred to South Carolina, caught one pass (a 52-yard touchdown), and then transferred back after the season.
The scheme is popular for a reason, but it certainly has weaknesses. In both clips above, Raynor knew where he was throwing the ball before the snap, so he’s not going through any progressions. As many of half of all his throws are predetermined before the ball is snapped. That kind of system allows you to plug-and-play quarterbacks and can help guys that struggle to read defenses thrive on pure instinct and athleticism (see: KJ Jefferson under Briles), but it leaves the offense unable to adjust to any kind of exotic look that takes away the primary read (see: Nico Iamaleava against Arkansas last year).
Taking away the deep ball without sacrificing run defense is the tried-and-true way to beat this kind of offense. Luckily for the Hogs, they are built to do exactly that. It’s exactly how they beat Tennessee’s similar scheme last year, and they finished a respectable 42nd in the nation in passing explosiveness allowed last year. Travis Williams’ defense will struggle with a true pro-style quarterback who can hit short-to-medium timing routes (Garrett Nussmeier comes to mind first, someone like Jaxson Dart also fits), but this isn’t a terrifying matchup for a mostly-rebuilt Razorback defense.
Unfortunately for A-State, establishing the run – even against friendly boxes – has been an issue. They averaged just 4.1 yards per rush against SEMO. Running backs totaled 29 carries with only one of them going for 10+ yards. The combo of returner Ja’Quez Cross and Southern Miss transfer Kenyon Clay combined to carry the ball 23 times for 77 yards (3.3 per rush) with a long of just eight yards. State wasn’t much better on the ground last year: very few runs go backwards, but the Red Wolves ranked 101st in the FBS in rushing success rate.
A lot of their runs look like this pin-and-pull Power, where there’s no backfield penetration but also no movement by the offensive line or big hole:
Overall, I think limiting big plays is the major key for the Razorback defense. If the Red Wolves can’t generate big plays, I don’t think their run game and short passing game are capable of sustaining drives against the Razorback defense.
When Arkansas has the ball
A tumultuous offseason for the Red Wolf defense was just the latest in what has been a tumultuous several years. It all adds up to one conclusion: the Red Wolves’ best hope is probably a shootout.
After several bad seasons, defensive coordinator Rob Harley left to take the Northern Illinois DC job. A-State ranked 128th out of 134 FBS teams in EPA+ allowed per drive. They were particularly bad against the run, ranking 125th in rushing yards allowed per game. The Hogs played only two teams ranked anywhere near the Red Wolves: they rushed for 232 yards against Oklahoma State and 359 yards against Mississippi State.
Jones initially scored a nice coup, landing Utah State defensive coordinator and interim head coach Nate Dreiling. Dreiling led Utah State in 2024 after Anderson, the former A-State coach, was fired following an investigation into how he had handled sexual misconduct complaints. However, it proved too good to be true, as Dreiling was hired by Oklahoma in February to coach linebackers. Soon after, Jones promoted linebackers coach Griff McCarley.
The Red Wolf D got the job done in the opener, but it wasn’t overly impressive. SEMO quarterback Jax Leatherwood completed 26 of 36 passes for 272 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The RedHawks recorded 20 first downs and finished with 364 yards of total offense. It’s worth noting that after SEMO took a 10-7 lead early in the second quarter, Arkansas State scored the next 35 points to build a 42-10 lead. Much of SEMO’s passing yards came in two basically garbage-time touchdown drives. They ran the ball well in the first quarter but not afterwards.
Arkansas State’s cornerbacks are likely in for a touch matchup with Arkansas’ receivers. They kept everything in front of them against the RedHawks but contested very little, breaking up just one pass and recording zero interceptions, while allowing the RedHawks to complete 72% of their pass attempts.
I’d like to see Taylen Green not focus too much on O’Mega Blake in this game. DJ Williams and the team at 4th & 5 do the best job of film breakdowns, so I highly recommend this one recapping the Alabama A&M game, particularly the credit he gives to Raylen Sharpe’s route-running:
Arkansas has some good route-runners on this roster, and I think the Hogs will have plenty of open receivers in this game.
Keys to the game
Maintain composure. A-State can’t really compete in terms of talent, but there is a bit of a motivation mismatch. The Red Wolves have a strong offense, so a couple of early scores could create some tension among the crowd and Razorback players. The longer this game remains close, the more the mental advantage leans A-State.
Avoid turnovers. The Red Wolves probably won’t stop the Hog offense much unless the Razorbacks give them gifts. The Hogs didn’t turn it over in the first game and would like to extend that streak to two.
Prevent big plays. A-State will score some points – holding them to 17 or fewer would be a win for Williams’ defense – the only way they’re going to score enough points to make this game close is to hit several big plays. Their offense is built to create big plays, but the Razorback defense is built to prevent them.
Arkansas and Arkansas State kickoff at 4 pm Saturday at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. The game is televised on ESPN+ and the SEC Network+.