Arkansas State will travel to Iowa City to play the University of Iowa on October 3, 2009. The game will be the first meeting between the Hawkeyes and the Red Wolves.

It will be only the fifth time for Arkansas State to play a Big 10 school. Arkansas State is 0-2 vs. Illinois and 0-2 vs. Minnesota. The 1998 game against Minnesota was the only one of the four games to be close.

Iowa is picked in the bottom three of the Big 10 this season in several publications.

First up, ESPN blogs the significance of Texas A&M fullback Jorvorskie Lane’s injury.

Latest ASU press release.

JONESBORO (8/26/08) – The Arkansas State football team wrapped up its fall camp last week, but was back on the practice fields Tuesday holding the first of three practices this week before it departs Friday for its season opener against Texas A&M Saturday at 6:00 p.m.

The Red Wolves worked out in shorts and shoulder pads, continuing their game planning and preparation for Saturday’s game at Kyle Field. The game marks the fifth time in the last six years ASU has opened its season with a Big 12 Conference opponent. Kyle Field seats 83,200, giving the game the potential to draw the sixth largest crowd to ever watch an Arkansas State game. ASU last played Texas A&M in 2003, a game that drew a crowd of 75,804 to rank as the ninth largest ever for an ASU game.

“Kyle Field is as good an environment as you get in college football,” said head coach Steve Roberts. “From a fan participation standpoint to a facility standpoint, the whole bit, it’s a great environment.”

The Red Wolves went through individual and inside drills, passing skeletons, blitz work, special teams practice and a team session over the course of the practice.

“It was a good practice today,” said Roberts. “There are a lot of things we have to clean up. We started making the players adjust to a lot of things that they might see during the course of the game - different calls on the offensive line and in the secondary, different motions or formations that they might have to adjust to, things that we don’t necessarily know they’re going to do, but to just apply the rules and make the calls. We had to stop, coach and teach at some points during that, but overall it wasn’t a bad day.”

The Red Wolves will practice again tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.

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.

Here’s a round-up for Tuesday of what’s happening with the Arkansas State Red Wolves.

Jerry Scott, ASU Sports Information Director has informed me that KFIN will not be the only station on the football radio network this year. The network is waiting on final paperwork from one more affiliate before the list released. The list will be out some time this week.

Todd Traub of the Democrat-Gazette had a good piece today about ASU’s preparations for Texas A&M including the use of the stadium sound system to simulate the noise at Kyle Field during practice. ASU has done this in the past and it the team has seemed to be well prepared for communicating signals in loud stadiums. Unfortunately I’ve not found the article on-line.

Mike Sherman is telling the Aggie media that ASU won’t be fazed by the crowd or noise. Sherman brags on Leonard being mobile and a deep passing threat. The coach also won’t confirm or deny reports that fullback Jorvorskie Lane, who is doubtful for Saturday, has had a concussion.

Dallas Morning News says that Texas A&M hasn’t settled on a starting kicker yet.

Latest on Red Wolves in the NFL. Some of the linked articles you have to dig pretty deep to find our guys.

Jon Bradley, FB Detroit Lions
Khayyam Burns, DB Kansas City Chiefs
Tyrell Johnson, FS Minnesota Vikings
Cleo Lemon, QB Jacksonville Jaguars
Oren O’Neal, FB Oakland Raiders
Darren Toney, CB, Carolina Panthers
Corey Williams, DT Cleveland Browns

Harry King, syndicated sports writer for Stephens Media devotes today’s column to new Arkansas State basketball coach John Brady.

Coach Brady has apparently impressed King with his comfortable and relaxed manner at ASU and how much he seems to be enjoying being at stAte. What appears to impress King the most is how well he did dealing with Tommy Smith of KABZ who has generally expressed great distaste for ASU and for Brady when he was at LSU.

Corey Leonard, Matt Mandich, Reggie Arnold and Brian Flagg are all featured in commercials for Red Wolves season tickets.

Steve Roberts is bound and determined to get me fired up this season. Seems like every practice report he’s got plenty of upbeat comments. Today it is all about the team managing to keep intensity despite two lightning delays.

JONESBORO (8/21/08) - The Arkansas State football team waited out a pair of lightning delays to finally complete its practice Thursday night at ASU Stadium, taking the field for the third and final time at 7:45 p.m. for its first practice that primarily focused on its season opener against Texas A&M.

“We had to go in twice because of the lightning and rain, but came out refocused both times and were able to get some stuff done,” said head coach Steve Roberts. “I saw the attention span pick up a little entering Texas A&M preparations with the different looks we were able to give them off cards and the best guesses as to what we might see. I was proud of our football team and real pleased with the focus tonight.”

The Red Wolves, suited out in shorts and shoulder pads, went through individual drills, inside drills, passing skeletons, special teams work, passing skeletons, position drills and a team session.

ASU will face the Aggies Aug. 30 before returning to Jonesboro to catch Texas Southern Sept. 6 in its first of three consecutive home games. ASU will hold its annual Fan Appreciation Day Saturday at 10:15 a.m. at ASU Stadium.

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.

David Johnson is the focus of today’s feature at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

With the switch to a no huddle offense it will be interesting to see if Johnson becomes more of a receiving target. He has previously demonstrated that he can be very hard to bring down after a catch.

With the rain being measured by the bucket as I drove to Jonesboro and back today I never expected that they would get practice in today. Apparently it slacked off enough to get in one of the two sessions planned for Wednesday.

JONESBORO (8/18/08) - The Arkansas State football team began and ended its 20th practice in the rain Wednesday night, working out in full pads inside ASU Stadium as it continued its 2008 fall camp.
The rainfall was light for much of practice, but picked up as the Red Wolves began a full-contact scrimmage with its younger players. The first and second-team units went through team drills before the younger players took the field for the 15-play scrimmage.

The Red Wolves were originally scheduled to have two practices today, but took the morning practice off before holding special teams and position meetings during the afternoon.

“We let the players have this morning off to rest, but still had a very productive day in our meetings and out here at practice tonight,” said head coach Steve Roberts. “I’m real pleased with their effort through fall camp and tomorrow we’ll start turning our full attention to Texas A&M and getting well.”

During the team segment, the top two offensive and defensive units ran 18 plays that were highlighted by an interception by sophomore cornerback Walter Moody, a couple of nice runs by redshirt freshman fullback Jermaine Robertson and several completions by junior quarterback Corey Leonard that went for solid gains.

The full-contact scrimmage included three series that all started inside the offense’s 40-yard line. The defense forced a three-and-out on the first set of downs, but the offense came back to pick up a pair of first downs on its next two drives. The longest play of the scrimmage was a 15-yard run by freshman quarterback Andre Smith, while freshman quarterback Ryan Aplin also looked good with a pair of completions that helped the offense gain a first down.

“I thought we executed really well in a lot of phases of the game (during practice),” said Roberts. “We had a lot of blitz stuff today, some things on team and inside, read zone type stuff. I thought our team drills went well and then we had a scrimmage at the end for some of our young guys to get a little extra work.  We’ve got some younger guys in there we know are going to be players in the future. Whether they are ready to go now or not, we don’t know. It just depends on if they’re called upon, but got a lot of guys in that group we feel like are going to be very good.”
ASU will practice again tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.

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.

Reprinted from BeltBoard.com

If you were planning the ultimate Sun Belt football adventure, this should be your itinerary. Looking at the pre-season best game picks for Sun Belt games, and Sun Belt home games.

Week 1
Best Game
Troy at Middle. This is the game that can set the tone as to whether Troy can try to be a title contender three years in a row. For Middle, a lot of conventional thinking is that they are a year away from being really good. Beating Troy to start the season makes them an early front-runner.

Everyone else is on the road, but obviously Texas-FAU will garner attention and Louisiana Lafayette at Southern Miss starts the annual Sun Belt – C-CUSA battle.
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