The last time the Red Wolves finished 7-5 was 2019, Blake Anderson’s next to last season as head football coach. After leading the team to victory over FIU in the Camellia Bowl, he would turn in a four-win COVID addled season and then accept the job at Utah State. The change was ideal for everyone – Anderson likely needed the change of scenery, and the program really needed a fresh start. After all, 2019 was the third 7-win finish for the team in five years. Arkansas State football was taking on water and as we later learned, sinking. The Sun Belt had gotten faster and bigger. The Red Wolves hadn’t met the recruiting challenges. The program required a reset at the molecular level.

Like this year’s 7-5 finish, 2019 also concluded with a one score loss – in Mobile to South Alabama (one of those programs rapidly becoming bigger and faster). Many fans arrived to the Camellia Bowl grateful for the post season but also frustrated by the program’s chronic inert stasis. We could see the Sun Belt moving forward without us. What we couldn’t see was our own path forward.

After Anderson’s departure, Butch Jones arrived to Jonesboro in the off season and, having spent time at larger programs like Cincinnati, Tennessee and Alabama, saw the glaring deficits in the locker room. Jones elected to rebuild the program from the roots, emphasizing culture while recruiting heavily within high school ranks. The recruiting worked. Jones has delivered top classes every year.

Recruiting high school athletes has proven a mixed bag. Coach Jones, rightly, sees the program as “developmental,” honing young men into capable football players. However, college football is, by in large, no longer developmental – at least for high-performing programs. The Group of Five has become the developmental league, polishing undiscovered gems for eventual sale on the Privileged Four’s Marketplace.

Look at the fine college football players Jones and his staff had carefully curated and nurtured only to lose to the highest bidder: Keyron Crawford, Dominic Zvada, Javante Mackey and Seydou Traore were potentially transformative Red Wolves whose presence could have easily resulted in at least two more victories. Imagine a defense with Mackey and Crawford wreaking havoc on Red Wolves opponents. Imagine how much of a weapon Traore would be in the A-State offense! As good as Clune Van Andel has been, imagine the range Zvada could have afforded!

The transfer portal isn’t all bad. It has delivered a kind of parity in college football, empowering any program with big bags of cash to sap depth from traditional powerhouses. It’s not just the Privileged Four taking advantage of the situation. Memphis, winner of ten games and a recent entrant in the AP Top 25, is bankrolled by FedEx, a company with enormous resources. Small market programs with Fortune 500 benefactors will do well in this new college football economy.

Meanwhile, programs like Arkansas State are left to fight in a low-budget purgatory where the unique selling points must transcend cold hard cash. Whether or not Jones is building an effective culture at Arkansas State is up for debate, but he’s absolutely right to focus on culture. One shake of the piggy bank will reveal that culture isn’t just among our most valuable assets – it’s among our only assets.

There are many with the Red Wolves fan base who take a dim view of the 7-5 season turned in by Butch Jones this season. However, the Vegas ceiling for this team was six victories with portal-heavy teams like Texas State, Marshall and James Madison expected to do well. The reality? Marshall won its division on the strength of its portal recruiting while the Cajuns won the SBC West with relatively light portal poaching.

The Red Wolves have gone from two losing seasons to two bowl-game seasons during Jones’ tenure. Wins have gone up from 2, to 3, to 6, to now seven. A player under Jones has broken the program’s receptions record. The program is headed in the proper direction, though the progress is slow by today’s time-lapse standards. Obviously, there is a great deal of work to be done. But I’m looking forward to the bowl game, because I still remember 2021 and 2022. These days don’t always arrive for us.

PHOTO MINE