As Powerful Entities Work to Destroy College Athletics, Red Wolves Fans Should Treat Every Season as a Gift
“Strength of Schedule” is a dumb way to die. Essentially, it operates under the shaky premise that certain teams are so good, that to play them somehow elevates your own profile, win or lose. Were that claim be buttressed by several weeks of hard data, one could accept the method to this madness. However, SoS is established at the beginning of the football season, when all is assumption and conjecture.
As a result, certain programs in certain conferences (let’s call them “The SEC” and the “BIG10”) receive an artificial benefit-of-the-doubt at season’s start, leaving the rest of us to angrily shake our fists to the heavens as national pundits (bought and paid for) declare our efforts “inconsequential.” Fans of James Madison and Tulane are still defending last year’s schedule to this day.
SoS isn’t the problem with college football – it’s just one tool among many used by the sport’s malevolent gods to degrade the institution into a big sack of cash. We as Red Wolves fans can only stand in the Chorus, prophecizing doom to our deaf overlords.
We must savor what time we have.
Join me, brave Red Wolves Fans, in embracing this delicious 2026 football season! Bask in the nourishing heat of college football’s dying breath! Suck the marrow from the bones of the sport that was once pure, alive and, well, fun. The end is nigh, but we live in the now!
There is much enjoyment to be had for Red Wolves fans. For the first time in memory (perhaps ever), Arkansas State is entertaining a four-way quarterback battle. In addition, the Red Wolves will field a player who was named to the Sun Belt Preseason First Team for three offensive positions. On October 17, we will see former A-State head coach Blake Anderson as a Sun Belt play-caller again, and we have tasty revenge-games against Kennesaw State, ULM and Louisiana. We get another shot at Memphis, those punks!
There’s more. The Sun Belt West is wide open. Troy is the projected favorite, but so what? The team is only getting 39% of last year’s production. In contrast, the Red Wolves are getting 49% of its snaps – 61% on offense (which ranks 8th nationally). Also, the Red Wolves benefit from a new offensive coordinator, Garret Altman, a QB guru from Vanderbilt who replaces Keith Heckendorf, who was clearly out-of-gas in Jonesboro. Altman has the benefit of fielding veteran offensive lineman Tristian Smith, who had sought greener fields only to be enticed back to A-State. The offensive line itself generates waves of optimism. It’s big. It’s beefy. And it features experienced hands like Will Saxon, Mason Myers and Aleric Watson. Whoever wins the QB competition should have time to cook.
Defensively, Red Wolves fans enjoy the element of surprise! Will we be good? Will we be terrible? Nobody knows. What we do know is that defensive coordinator Griff McCarley, now in his second year, somehow managed to coalesce the team’s worst unit at season’s beginning to its best unit at season’s end. Perhaps McCarley can deliver a full year of excellence. It helps that AG McGhee and Brandon Barnes return to provide veteran experience, and we’ve heard pretty good things about newcomers Five Hamilton, Joe Drew and Suttan Badmus. Fingers remain crossed until opening day!
College sports embarks on a dark path. Buy me a beer, and you can listen to me complain on its decline in endless breaths. For now, however, the Red Wolves remain our scarlet beacon of light, flickering hope with every Clune Van Andel 50-yarder.
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