Game 9: Arkansas St. Preview

The # 2 Alabama Crimson Tide football team continues its quest for a perfect season this week as they step out of SEC play to take on the Arkansas State Red Wolves of the Sun Belt conference. If you are reading this a little confused about the name Red Wolves you should be. Arkansas St. was formerly the Indians, but was forced to change their name when the NCAA apparently got bored, needed something to do, and made colleges with Native American type nicknames change them, unless they could get support from a particular tribe in the area. Apparently, the Native Americans around Jonesboro, AR did not go to bat for Arky St.

My knowledge of the state of Arkansas or wolves is not vast, so I have no idea if their are Red Wolves running around the state or they just put some names in a hat and Red Wolves won out. Enough about their name, lets take a look at their team.

Arky St. enters the game with a 4-3 record overall and is 2-1 in the Sun Belt conference. Arky St. is coming off a bye week and in their last appearance the Red Wolves dropped a tight game to the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragun Cajuns 28-23. Arkansas St. does come to Tuscaloosa with a fairly impressive resume this season, including a season opening win at Texas A&M.

After the Texas A&M win, Arkansas St. hung 83 on Texas Southern, in a 83-10 win. That was not a misprint....they scored 83 points. While I realize Texas Southern is not full of All-Americans, anytime you score 83 points on somebody you have an offense. In their three losses (Southern Miss, Memphis, and La-Lafayette) Arkansas St. is yet to really be blown out. Their largest margin of defeat was against Memphis 29-17, and that was a two point game with 3 minutes left.

Statistically the Red Wolves rank at the top of the Sun Belt Conference in most categories. On offense they are averaging 436 yards per game which is good for 3rd in the league and average 33 points per game, which is also good for 3rd in the Sun Belt and 22nd in the country. Junior QB Corey Leonard leads the Red Wolves offense with 1474 yards on the season and has thrown 11 touchdowns. He brings a very impressive 137.98 quarterback rating into Tuscaloosa. On the other side of the ball, they are ranked first in the Sun Belt in overall defense and give up the fewest points in the league giving up 335 yards per game and surrendering 21.6 PPG.

Alabama enters this game relatively healthy with nose guard Terrance Cody the only real notable starter not able to go in this game. While Arkansas State comes in with a big win over a power conference team, the Crimson Tide should be able to handle the Red Wolves on Saturday if we come to play. The challenge for Alabama is to keep focus against an inferior team coming off a big road win at Tennessee last week and a chance to wrap up the SEC West title next week at LSU. Hopefully Coach Saban can get through to his team that there is a lot to play for Saturday and can point back to the La-Monroe game last year as a point of reference as to what can happen when we just show up and don't come to play.

# 3 Penn St. is off this week and either # 1 Texas or # 6 Texas Tech will remain unbeaten after Saturday night, so Alabama can not afford to slip up to this team if they plan to play for it all in January. With only four regular season games remaining, I think the Tide realizes the importance of every game at this point in the year.