Red Wolves buy in again with latest staff

Arkansas State Coach Blake Anderson is the Red Wolves’ fifth head coach since 2010, their seventh including interim coaches. “To have gone through what they’ve gone through, and to respond the way they have, I could not have written it up the way they have handled it,” Anderson said.

Arkansas State Coach Blake Anderson is the Red Wolves’ fifth head coach since 2010, their seventh including interim coaches. “To have gone through what they’ve gone through, and to respond the way they have, I could not have written it up the way they have handled it,” Anderson said.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

JONESBORO -- Blake Anderson was expecting at least some reluctance when he arrived at Arkansas State in December. After all, he was getting ready to fill an office that had been occupied by four different men over the previous four seasons.

Eight months later, though, Anderson said his transition as ASU's head football coach has been void of many bumps and as smooth as he could have hoped. Credit that, he said, to the most experienced players he inherited. They've certainly had practice with transition.

About the Red Wolves

COACH Blake Anderson (0-0 in first season at ASU and overall)

LAST YEAR 8-5, 5-2 Sun Belt Conference

PRESEASON PICK Tied for first in the Sun Belt Conference

RETURNING STARTERS 14 (4 offense, 10 defense)

OFFENSIVE PLAYER TO WATCH RB Brandon Byner

DEFENSIVE PLAYER TO WATCH LB Xavier Woodson

Anderson will be the Red Wolves' fifth coach in five years when ASU opens the season Saturday against Montana State, the latest in a line of head coaches that includes Steve Roberts (2010), Hugh Freeze (2011), Gus Malzahn (2012) and Bryan Harsin (2013). Counting David Gunn and John Thompson, who served as interim coaches in each of the past three GoDaddy bowls, Anderson will be the ASU's seventh coach in 41 games dating to Roberts' final game as coach in 2010.

"They have gone above and beyond how you can expect a group [to handle it]," Anderson said. "To have gone through what they've gone through, and to respond the way they have, I could not have written it up the way they have handled it."

The recent stretch of turnover that has mirrored ASU's best run as an FBS program is believed to be matched at the major college level only by Kansas State, which had five coaches from 1944 to 1948.

Some of the team's most experienced players, fifth-year seniors who signed with Roberts in 2010 and have seen the program go from a 4-8 finish that season to three consecutive Sun Belt Conference titles, said their ability to turn the page has been simple.

It starts, senior nickel back Frankie Jackson said, with an understanding that the players make the team more than the coaches.

"We're the ones out there playing and executing," Jackson said. "It doesn't really matter what coach we have. We're still going to make the plays we're capable of making."

That's not to say the players haven't formed a bond with their latest group of coaches. They have, senior safety Sterling Young said, thanks to an effort put forth by Anderson and his staff.

Young, who said he almost transferred after Roberts resigned in 2010, said defensive coordinator Joe Cauthen and the defensive assistants employed a tactic not used by other coaches when each one of them scheduled one-on-one meetings with players to discuss topics that rarely touched football.

"We didn't know anything about each other, so you kind of hesitate to open yourself," Young said. "They laid everything out, came in and talked to everybody. ... They explained their stories. Just being able to see that they're human beings, they care for us and everything, we were able to buy into their systems much easier."

ASU is hoping to move toward more tangible building, and that will require adjusting to Anderson's new offense, which will be similar but promises to be faster-paced than the uptempo offenses employed by Freeze, Malzahn and Harsin.

Then, there is Cauthen's new defense, which is similar to Thompson's 4-2-5 from the past two seasons.

Junior quarterback Fredi Knighten hasn't officially been named the starter, but he has taken the majority of the snaps with the No. 1 offense in scrimmages. He'll lead an offense that returns All-Sun Belt receiver J.D. McKissic, running back Michael Gordon, tight end Darion Griswold and tackle Colton Jackson, but there is little experience elsewhere.

ASU returns 10 defensive players with starting experience, including Qushaun Lee, the conference's preseason defensive player of the year, but little on the defensive line.

But Sun Belt coaches picked the Red Wolves -- who are 28-11 over the past three seasons and 20-3 against league opponents -- second in a preseason poll, leaving expectations inside the program unchanged from previous seasons.

"It means everything to win around here," senior center Tyler Greve said. "When I first got here, the culture was different. Now, it's an expectation to win."

If nothing else, Anderson has seen enough from his first team to possibly spin it off into an alternate venture.

"Man, somebody is going to write a book about it someday, and it's going to be a good one," he said. "Maybe I need to do that."

Sports on 08/24/2014