Arkansas State Red Wolves (4-2, 3-0), vs New Mexico State Aggies (3-4, 1-2)

Location: Aggie Memorial Stadium, Las Cruces, NM

Time: 6:00 PM MT, Saturday, October 28th

TV: ESPN3

Line: Arkansas State -3.5, O/U 70

History: Arkansas State leads the all-time series, 6-5 and has won the last four meetings

Head coach Doug Martin made a couple of very salient points in his press conference this week.

First and foremost, do you have any idea how long it has been since the New Mexico State Aggies have played meaningful football on Halloween weekend or later?

Fifteen years.

In 2002, the Aggies started the season 1-3 with road losses against South Carolina, Cal, and Georgia, then nearly won out on their way to a 7-5 record (though that somehow didn’t get them into a bowl game).

In the fourteen seasons in between, there have been only three instances of the Aggies getting their third win any earlier than the weekend before Thanksgiving. In 2008 the Aggies beat Nevada on October 11th to get to 3-2 and didn’t win another game. The following season they beat Utah State on October 10th to get to 3-3 and didn’t win another game. Two years later in 2011, they beat Idaho to improve to 3-4 on October 15th and then went 1-6 the rest of the season.

Add it up, and the last three times the Aggies had three wins by mid-October they went 1-19 the rest of the way. I don’t think there will be any correlation here because that was six-plus years ago, this is a much different Aggie offense and they’re about to be through the front-loaded portion of their schedule where they are everybody’s homecoming opponent.

Arkansas State Red Wolves

The Red Wolves have momentum on their side, as their offense has kept right on chugging along and their defense has started to find its stride in conference play.

I had the opportunity to watch the Wolves last week as they took the Ragin’ Cajuns out behind the woodshed. The ULL offensive line had literally no answer for Javon Rolland-Jones, and once they ran out of options for one-on-one matchups, they moved to double-teams that, even when they worked, left his teammates with easy opportunities to create havoc.

Same was true on the other side of the ball, as Justice Hansen got loose for a number of lengthy runs and had all day to complete most of his passes. The Red Wolves faced a Cajun team with very little explosiveness on offense, and what little they had was fully neutralized by a very athletic Arkansas State defense.

The Wolves have been fortunate, though. They’ve got a good offense that has kept getting better but has had the good fortune of not really playing a good defense since their loss to Nebraska. They have played three conference games, all against bottom-fifteen defenses. It’s easy to get momentum going when your is the only defense getting stops.

New Mexico State Aggies

The Aggies are the underdog in this game, but don’t let the statistics fool you. They’ve got a potent offense, one that won’t get down by a couple scores and unravel like ULL did. They also have the good fortune that while they are suffering the ignominy of being the homecoming opponent for the fourth time this year, they get to play the Red Wolves at the best possible time.

NMSU won their last game, which makes error correction a lot easier, and they are coming off their bye which gave them extra prep time and an opportunity to get literally everyone healthy. There’s little more you could ask for than all of that in addition to getting to face Arkansas State on their home turf.

The Aggies have used some impressive wide receiver depth as well as the emergence of Jason Huntley out of the backfield to produce a dynamic offense that is never truly out of it, and a defense that has finally figured out how to produce consistent pressure and turnovers in order to make sure that the offense is facing a large gap at least a little less often.

It’s often said that when your defense is terrible, it can be a blessing in disguise because you can simply improve from “atrocious” to “bad” and it can make a world of difference to your bottom line. Do things like record 14 sacks through seven games (which is already their sixth-best sack total in the last 14 seasons) and you are generally going to improve your game-to-game performance.

PREDICTION

This is a tricky one to figure out; this game opened with Arkansas State as a six-point favorite on Monday morning, and that line had shifted to -3.5 by Wednesday morning.

The Red Wolves had done to them by SMU what they did to the Cajuns, in that they played close for a quarter and then got boatraced the rest of the way; that matters because that’s by far the best offense they’ve faced all season, and also the only one they’ve faced that’s better than the Aggies.

New Mexico State has literally nobody to blame but themselves for being 3-4 right now. Against Arizona State, an opening interception and a horribly timed pick-six in the second half created just enough of a gap that the offense couldn’t close the distance once they found their rhythm. Against Arkansas, a first-half red-zone interception and a second-half kickoff fumble turned the score lopsided and the offensive momentum never sustained. Against Appalachian State, they turned the ball over six times but still didn’t trail for good until the final seven minutes.

The Aggie M.O. this season has essentially been that the offense needs some time to find their rhythm, and the only real deciding factor is whether they can avoid turnovers enough to not be in a multiple-touchdown hole by the time that happens. Both of these teams are good enough that with no turnovers or sacks, this could easily be a “first to 50 wins” type game. I don’t foresee that happening though.

As is my wont, I’ll give the edge to the more tested team. The Aggies already played the other two Sun Belt “elites” in Troy and App State – both of whom have better defenses overall than the Wolves – and nearly beat both. I’ll hope they’ve learned from their mistakes and limit the turnovers just enough to make this fourth win happen

New Mexico State 43, Arkansas State 40