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Is that game this year or next? I would like to attend if it doesn't clash with an ASU home game, but I have read one place that it was in LR this year and saw somewhere wlsw that it was next year.

Which is it?

We go to Tenessee-Martin this year.

Burly Bear

I'm pretty sure it is the week before ASU plays them, except on a Thursday night.

Trey, I'm pretty sure you are right about that.

We play Martin on a Thursday and then Arkansas State gets them the following week.

Burly Bear

How come I was looking at some polls and it said ASU way way down in the poll? I don't know much about ASU and thats why I'm asking...(there are no insults intended)

CFBNews.com has probably the most in depth analysis of the Sun Blet and they have ASU as the "darkhorse" so to speak. Very young on the OL but big. Strong defense, special teams, and RBs.

Most of your magazines don't bother to even get the rosters correct and rank all of the SB teams at the bottom even though the league finished better than the MAC. They just don't bother checking on most non-BCS conferences.

That said, with a D1AA game on the schedule again and only one "non-winnable" game at OSU there is reason for optimism even though Roberts' frist true recruiting class is only RS sophomores.

Hey, I have said since day one that if they would give Roberts time in Jonesboro that he would produce a winner.

In my wildest dreams, I would have never thought he would have turned around Southern Arkansas University the way he did.

This very well may be the Indians year.


Burly Bear

I really did just want to know if the UCA game was in LR and had no intentions of hijacking this thread.

However, since you asked....

Last season was seen as a step back for ASU by the uninformed. It wasn't the case.

There were two games that saw ASU completely outmanned and those were LSU and MTSU (they kill us on turf).

With no lower division games on the schedule, blowing a 9 point lead in the final 4 minutes against Memphis, blowing the game against Ole Miss, fumbling away a sure win against Idaho, and getting screwed over against ULL it was a very competitive season. Especially with 7 first time starters on defense.

Everyone has those close games, but I believe Roberts is on track.

I totally agree with you....I've seen Roberts and his crew in action...IMHO, if there is anyone that get the Tribe going, it's Roberts.

You guys need to stick with him.

Burly Bear

What happened to the Bobo era? Seems he was starting to make the turn, then the wheels fell off. I thought after he shaved the head it would be brighter times in Jonesboro, but that didn't materialize.


And was Joe Hollis as horrible as I remember him being?

I, too, am of the belief Roberts can get something decent going there. The growth of Jonesboro helps, the overall improvement in Arkansas HS football helps, and stability helps a whole ton as long as it doesn't translate into stagnation.

Indians fans, maybe I've just paid more attention or maybe it's just there's more talent available, but it seems that the Tribe has put a greater emphasis on getting local/Arkansas talent. Is that so or no? Either way, I think you can only help yourself by keeping as many local kids as possible as it, if nothing else, generates interest (which generates dollars) in the program. Even if you take six locals and only 3 or 4 pan out, you're probably going to get some residual effect from the others anyway. And if I'm going to have somebody be an essential waste of a scholly, I'd rather it be a local guy than some buffoon from a California JUCO.

Bobo never had things on track. His one winning season ASU was 3-0 vs. I-AA and 3-5 vs. I-A. Even then it was a heavily senior laden team (most of the seniors recruited by Perkins) that was 2-5 going into the final four games. You don't build fan interest by losing 5 of your first seven.

Admittedly Bobo was right that you can't build by playing 2 and 3 money games a year on the road and he was right that we needed a bigger budget for assistants and needed to upgrade facilities. That stuff is finally worked out.

Hollis. In my opinion wasn't as bad as many people think.
He made a critical mistake by failing to redshirt a bunch of players. He pulled the redshirt off QB Cleo Lemon at Va.Tech in a game that was lost at the time. ASU went 1-6 down the stretch with Cleo at QB, a wasted season. Come 2000 Lemon is a senior and he rarely plays back-up Andy Shatley and 3rd option Tommy Miller sees no action other than holding on kicks. Shatley quits football and transfers to Vandy where his wife is in grad school. Miller stays 3rd team behind two true freshmen in 2001. Thanks to the injury bug ASU starts 4 or 5 different QB's during the season (coach can't stop injuries). Red-shirted Lemon would have been a senior. Lemon left ASU after the 2000 season and last I heard was still hanging on with the Chargers in the NFL after playing in Europe. A redshirt season could have done wonders for him and ASU.

Insult to injury Hollis vows to go option after Lemon leaves and recruits a couple option QB's. After signing date hires a new offensive coordinator and scraps the option plan for single back BUT DOESN'T HAVE A PASSING QB!

He also failed to redshirt lb Segun Ajigbeda. Last I heard he was still bouncing back and forth between the AFL and AF2.

His other mistake was not redshirting Adams. He was estimated to be at 60% when the season started due to injury and never reached 100% his freshman season. A totally wasted year.

In his 3rd season Hollis nearly dug it out. ASU went 4-7 but was one yard short of beating Idaho in OT and twice got inside the Utah State 30 in the fourth quarter (getting as close as the 23) and came away with no points in a six point loss. Take both and ASU is 6-5 and co-champs of the Big West. But for Boise State busting an 83 yard run against Utah State, he could have won the Big West outright and gone to the Humanitarian Bowl to face Louisville. That's in addition to losses by a combined 8 points to TCU and Memphis.

Season 4. The players are doubting Hollis. They've dropped four games by a TD or less the year before. Game 1 North Carolina State rallies to beat ASU in double OT. OU routs us. Memphis scores on its last possession and the winning FG for ASU falls short in game 3. Game 5 I-AA Richmond scores three times in the fourth to come back and win. New Mexico State scores three unanswered TD's to force OT and then wins in OT. Then Utah State rallies in the second half to win.

At that point the team has totally lost confidence and year 5 was just going through the motions.

Roberts has kept the QB jinx going.
Year 1. Tommy Miller is the starter and goes down in game 1.
Year 2. His QB of the future has a career ending injury in the spring.
Year 3. Juco savior turns out to be 2 credits short and can't enroll for spring and comes in cold in August instead of having a spring under his belt.

In season 1 he's got a lead over Tulsa in the fourth and sees the players are slumping. He and the assistants go ape on the sideline and get them fired up enough to survive the Tulsa rally.

Sorry this is so long. But the slide of ASU football while hurtful is really amazing to run through because there are so many little things that went wrong in addition to big things.

If ASU is going to turn it around with the instate kids, I think they need to do it now. I have a feeling they will lose some players to recruiting battles with UCA if/when UCA makes the jump to D1AA. I know that ASU is D1 and UCA will be 1AA, but I still think some of the players (especially in the central part of the state) will opt to play for UCA instead of ASU.

If ASU can become successful in the next couple of years, I think they will have a better shot to win those players from UCA...which could hurt UCA. Hopefully, there will be enough talent around for UCA and ASU to be competitive and successful.

I hope that you are right in that both UCA and ASU will be able to get the talent that they need to form winning programs!

Arkansas has a lot of untapped I-AA talent. Houston Nutt when he was at Murray State was the only one to really tap into it after ASU moved to I-A. Lord knows UAPB has not done a good job of it.

ASU and UCA will bump heads on a few players but not that many. My observation has been that there are number of I-AA caliber players that are staying home and playing Division II ball. UCA will likely suck the life out of Tech, SAU, UAM, Henderson and to lesser degrees Ouachita and Harding by taking those I-AA caliber players that are now splitting up between the in-state Division II schools.

We can only hope so!!