Offensive explosion against Tigers leads to 83-10 win

There was no let down Saturday night at ASU Stadium when the Arkansas State football team played their first home game as the Red Wolves a week after beating Texas A&M on the road.

Arkansas State beat Texas Southern physically up and down the field en route to an 83-10 victory in front of a pumped up crown of 21,741. The victory improved the team's record to 2-0.

"Coming off an emotional hard fought victory last week you're always concerned with your football team coming back from that," said Arkansas State head coach Steve Roberts. "We really challenged our guys to not give them any life early in the ball game and we were able to go out and take over the ball game real quick."

Despite not attempting a single pass in the second half, ASU still scored on 11 possessions and tallied up 670 yards of total offense. The 73-point margin of victory set an ASU Stadium record and second most overall in school history.

"I thought a lot of individuals had some great ball games," said Roberts. "I thought Corey (Leonard) started the ball game off really well and I thought Travis (Hewitt) came in and managed well in the second half. All of the running backs that carried the ball did a tremendous job."

Arkansas States offense had six scoring drives in five plays or less. By the time the Red Wolves introduced their new mascot 'Howl' at the beginning of the second quarter the score was already 31-0.

"We are 2-0 and we have to get over this in a hurry, we are obviously not as good as the score indicated against the competition we're going to see the rest of the year," said Roberts. "But we will take a 'W' (win) and that's what counts.

The Arkansas State defense also did a good job by holding Texas Southern to 223 plays of total offense.  Texas Southern quarterback Bobby Reid to only 53 yards rushing and 27 yards passing was also beneficial for the defense. 

"Defensively our first defense looked good and shut them down," said Roberts.  "They gave up a couple of plays but overall they did a great job of shutting them down."

The defensive highlight of the night was sophomore linebacker Javon Mckinnon's 25-yard fumble return for a touchdown on a play caused by fellow linebacker, senior Ben Owens.

"It was a great game, the defense did a great job and did what we had to do," said Owens. "We stayed to the game plan and played hard every play and couldn't ask for anything else. The coaches set us up with a really good game plan. We just played hard and did our job to shut them down."

Junior quarterback Corey Leonard began the ASU attack when he found senior tight end David Johnson for a 53-yard touchdown pass on the second play of the game.  Leonard finished the game completing nine of 10 passes for 229 yards and four touchdowns. The four touchdowns are tied for second all-time on the school's single game record list.

"We knew we were going to have good match ups with what they were doing defensively," said Leonard. "Definitely in the box they didn't want us to rush on them. We were getting man matches outside with our corners, but again they were trying to play our tight ends with linebackers and our tight ends are our strength so anytime you get that kind of match up you are going to exploit it as much as you can."

Junior running back Reggie Arnold also starred during his limited time on the field rushing for 123 yards and two touchdowns on only eight carries. Arnold is now tied for fifth all-time in 100 yard rushing games for ASU.

"It felt pretty good touching the end zone," said Arnold. "We learned after a big win that we can come out here and refocus. Most teams would come out and relax against a team like this and we wanted to not take these guys lightly and just prepare for them like we did Texas A&M."

Also contributing to the running game was redshirt freshmen running back Derek Lawson. Lawson, who went to high school at Nettleton, rushed for 211 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. One of the carries was an 80-yard run that set up a touchdown run by Hewitt.

"I guess I have to give credit to the offensive line, they did an awesome job tonight opening holes for me and Reggie," said Lawson. "The touchdown run opened up and I just took off and tried not to get caught."

Johnson led all receivers in the game with 87 yards and two touchdowns on only three receptions. 

Junior kicker Josh Arauco also had a big night connecting on eleven extra point attempts and was two for two on field goals of the night. He made field goals from 33 and 30 yards out.

"I told our football team to enjoy it and get over it early because we have a big time challenge next week," Roberts said.