Quaaack. That's the sound of a mallard settling into the decoys, and it's the sound of me settling into my seat at Centennial Bank Stadium. Ty Doucet-Harmon here, Delta duck guide, Red Wolves lifer, and the only man in Craighead County who brings a duck call to a football game and uses it for every first down. Pull up a bucket. Let's talk scouting. And if you hear a little quack in the middle of a paragraph, that's not a typo. That's tradition.
Part 1: Forty Minutes in the Blind
Duck hunting is mostly waiting. You get up before dawn, you sit very still, and you outlast the birds. Last Saturday night in Hattiesburg, the Red Wolves went duck hunting. Arkansas State beat Southern Miss 23-13 at Renasant Stadium, in front of 22,585, and we held the ball for 40 minutes and 8 seconds. Southern Miss had it for 19:52. Quack. That's patience, friends.
It wasn't pretty, and I won't pretend it was. AP counted five punts, four of them after three-and-outs. We went 4-for-17 on third down. But every time we did score, we built a real drive: AP says all five scoring drives ran from seven to 13 plays. And we went 3-for-3 on fourth down, which in duck terms means we didn't flinch when the birds circled.
Clune Van Andel was the man in the blind. He made field goals of 29, 40 and 44 yards and both extra points, 3-for-3 and 11 points. Kenyon Clay ran in from 2 yards to make it 13-0 in the second quarter, and Timothy Carter added a 2-yard touchdown early in the fourth for a 23-7 lead. Trey Owens completed 17 of 25 passes for 170 yards with no interceptions, and we didn't turn it over once.
The defense picked off Landry Lyddy twice. AG McGhee had one of those and led the team with seven tackles, and Dontrae Henderson had the other. Southern Miss also turned it over on downs three times. Then, to finish it, the Red Wolves ran the last 7:21 off the clock with a 14-play drive to the Southern Miss 11. That's not football, friends. That's a man sitting in a cold blind until the sun comes up, smiling.
We're 3-4 and 1-2 in the Sun Belt, and this was our first road win of the season. Our other two wins came at home, over West Georgia and Kennesaw State. A week earlier, on Oct. 8, we lost a 56-49 shootout at home to South Alabama, so this was a happy change of pace. Quack-quack.
Part 2: Panthers, Meet the Ridge
Saturday, 7 p.m. Eastern, on ESPN+, Georgia State comes to Jonesboro. And I'll be fair first, because my granddaddy said you compliment the bird before you call it in.
The Panthers can play. AP's preview has them 23rd in FBS in yards at 452.7 a game, 26th in scoring at 36.5 points a game, and 26th on third down at 47.5%. Cameran Brown has 1,291 passing yards and 13 touchdown passes. Rodshaun Dorsey has seven touchdown catches, and Xavier Esqillion has seven sacks. Seven! That fella hunts.
Now let me tell you what I see from the blind.
The Last Flight Didn't Land
Georgia State just flew to Harrisonburg and got plucked, 49-22, by James Madison. JMU led 35-10 at halftime. The Panthers went 4-for-13 on third down and turned it over twice. And according to AP, Georgia State's turnover margin is minus-4 this season, 113th in FBS. Arkansas State's is plus-3, 34th. That's a duck that drops its own feathers, friends. We scoop them up.
The Series
CollegeFootballData.com has Arkansas State 7-2 against Georgia State in their meetings. The last one, in 2024, was a 27-20 Red Wolves win in Atlanta. Seven and two. That's not a rivalry. That's a migration pattern.
Where It Gets Real
I won't hide our own soft spots, because honest guides bring home more ducks. AP's preview has our defense 124th in FBS against the run, giving up 195.4 yards a game, and 129th on third down. The Panthers run for 206 yards a game. That's the whole hunt right there: if the Red Wolves stop the run, Georgia State's 32:34 average time of possession, 25th in FBS, turns into a lot of punting.
On our side, Owens has 1,631 passing yards and nine touchdowns. Hunter Summers leads us with 31 catches for 422 yards. Joe Drew leads the team with 64 tackles, and he's been in on everything all year. And our pass defense is 31st in FBS. Georgia State, you can throw it, but bring a retriever.
The Mascot Report
In 2008 Arkansas State became the Red Wolves. The red wolf is a real North American animal,, and it never needed a name change since. Georgia State's Panthers have only played football since 2010. Their whole program is younger than some of the decoys in my truck. I respect a young program. I just like mine aged, like a good cast-iron skillet.
Ty's Blind Report: Jonesboro vs. Atlanta
Jonesboro. We live on top of a ridge, folks. Wikipedia says Jonesboro sits atop Crowley's Ridge in northeast Arkansas, a rare bit of high ground rising out of the flat Delta. Everybody else in the Delta looks up at us. Craighead Forest Park, owned by the city, sits right on the ridge with a 60-acre fishing lake, camping, hiking and biking trails. The Delta Symphony Orchestra, the only professional symphony in northeast Arkansas, has been playing here for more than four decades. So yes, I have a duck call in one pocket and a symphony ticket in the other.
Our population in 2020 was 78,576, and on a Saturday night at Centennial Bank Stadium, which seats 30,406 since 2015, it sounds like all of them brought calls. The stadium opened in 1974. It's been ours from day one.
Atlanta. Now, Atlanta. It's a big city, 498,715 people in 2020, and it's got a lot going for it. The Coca-Cola Company has its headquarters there, and Hartsfield-Jackson is the world's busiest airport. Friends, when your proudest landmark is the place where everybody's trying to leave, I have questions.
And Georgia State's football stadium? Wikipedia says Center Parc Stadium was built for the 1996 Summer Olympics, then turned into Turner Field for the Braves. Then the Braves packed up after 2016 and moved to Truist Park in Cobb County. So the Panthers play in a ballpark that the baseball team left. That's like setting up your decoys on a pond after the ducks already flew to the next county. Quack-quack, wrong pond.
I'll grant Atlanta this: it has big skyscrapers along Peachtree. Jonesboro has a ridge. Theirs was built by people. Ours was built by God, and nobody's ever had to repaint it.
The Final Call
Here's my scouting report. Georgia State scores a lot, holds the ball, and brings a pass rusher with seven sacks. Arkansas State just held the ball for 40 minutes, didn't turn it over, picked off two passes, and owns a 7-2 record against the Panthers. The question is our run defense. If the Red Wolves tighten up, this one comes down to the fourth quarter, and a fourth quarter in Jonesboro is a cold blind at dawn. We're used to waiting. The Panthers are city cats.
Get in the blind early, keep your voice low until it counts, and when it counts, let it rip. Quaaack.
My call: Georgia State Panthers 30, Arkansas State Red Wolves 29.