“Well, believe it or not when they hired me here they said that it’s kinda already in the schedule and the plans in two years. That kinda caught me off guard a little bit, but it looks like in two years we’ll be playing them anyways.” – Gus Malzahn

Get ready Red Wolves fans, you’re heading back to Jordan-Hare stadium in 2013. The last meeting between Arkansas State & Auburn was the coming out party for then, soon-to-be Heisman Trophy winner, Cam Newton. In that game Newton combined for 357 total yards and 5 touchdowns with Gus Malzahn on Auburn’s sideline. We’ll see what happens with Coach Malzahn on the other side of the field.

[update] ASU athletic department expects to make an official announcement later today.

h/t – Chris Bahn ArkSports360
Full mp3 of podcast here.

Ole miss callin for me now #sec – tweet

A 3 star recruit on Scout.com coming out of high school, Houston had garnered interest from SEC schools. Having SEC teams interested in their recruits is nothing new for Gus Malzahn and Arkansas State. A few weeks ago, just before national signing day, Kentucky was able to flip Jalen Whitlow on his commitment to ASU.

What made Houston’s tweet even more interesting is the timing. Houston sent in his National Letter of Intent to ASU on national signing day (February 1st). According to NCAA rules, schools are prohibited from contacting a student-athlete once he/she has signed their National Letter of Intent with another program.

An important provision of the National Letter of Intent program is a recruiting prohibition applied after a prospective student-athlete signs a National Letter of Intent. This prohibition requires participating institutions to cease recruitment of a prospective student-athlete once a National Letter of Intent is signed with another institution. here

Did Ole Miss commit a recruiting violation in this incident? According to Tres Houston they did not. When asked about the situation, Houston said he did not directly speak with anyone at Ole Miss. But somebody from the school did contact Houston’s juco coach asking about him.

At this point it’s unclear why Ole Miss is calling and asking about a player who is committed to Arkansas State. This is an interesting situation and hopefully some more details will come out soon.

We’ve uploaded a screen grab of the tweet for future reference. here and here

One of the players involved, linebacker Tanner Brock, revealed some interesting information during his encounters with a Narcotics Investigator. Brock’s arrest warrant was also released and can be found in it’s entirety here http://bit.ly/wirOQ7

Here is a general timeline of the investigation and some details from the arrest warrant that seemed most interesting:

October 18th, 2011

Narcotics Investigator received information that Ty Horn, TCU football player, was possibly selling marijuana to students.

November 3rd, 2011

Narcotics Investigator bought marijuana from TCU football players Ty Horn and D.J. Yendrey.

January 19th, 2012

D.J. Yendrey introduced the Narcotics Investigator to Tanner Brock. Yendrey was out of marijuana, but told the officer that a friend (Brock) had some “fire“. The arrest warrant then defines “fire” as [street terminology for what would be considered good marijuana].

During this encounter the Narcotics Investigator asked for .5 ounces of marijuana and agreed to pay $200 for the substance. The narcotics lab later measured the marijuana at 15.28 grams, which is roughly .54 ounces.

January 25th, 2012

The Narcotics Investigator met again with Tanner Brock to purchase .5 ounces of marijuana. This time the agreed upon price was $220. The narcotics lab later measured the marijuana at 13.75 grams, which is roughly .485 ounces.

This time around Brock raised the price of the marijuana. Then gave the officer nearly 2 grams less of marijuana.

February 1st, 2012

TCU head football coach Gary Patterson required the team to take a urine test to test for narcotics.

The Narcotics Investigator talked to Tanner Brock later in the day. Brock told the officer “Ya, they caught us slipping“. Then Brock went on to say that it wasn’t a big deal and that the officer should come over if he needs some marijuana.

The officer then went and bought $220 worth of marijuana from Brock. The narcotics lab measured the marijuana at 13.89 grams, which is roughly .49 ounces.

During their interaction, Brock speculated that about 60 of the football players would be screwed because of the drug test. He also discussed a conversation he had with fellow teammate Ty Horn and how Horn stated that probably only 20 football players would pass the test.

At some point the officer asked if Brock could get him xanax or hydrocodone pills. Brock told the officer that he used to get them from 2 TCU football players last year. But the players both graduated and that he has a harder time getting them now.

Thoughts

First off I want to make one thing clear: I am pretty ignorant when it comes to the inner workings of a drug deal. But I found it interesting that after the first drug deal, Brock raised his prices and gave the officer less marijuana. From a business perspective that is about as good as it gets. Charge more for less.

There were multiple TCU football players involved in selling drugs that were caught. What are the chances that there are other TCU football players selling drugs? On the same day that Brock felt he had failed a drug test, he was still selling drugs and acted as if it wasn’t a big deal.

Cornerback Devin Johnson claims that 82 players failed the test.

Tanner Brock and Ty Horn, both football players, claim that 75% of the TCU football roster are taking drugs. I’m very interested to see the results of the drug test that coach Gary Patterson required them to take just one week ago. According to Brock and Horn we should see the majority team fail the test. You can’t have much of a spring practice with only 20 people.

Who were the 2 players that Tanner Brock used to buy xanax and hydrocodone pills from and will we ever find out their names? Will any of the players who graduated last year come out and claim they’re innocent?

Current AD Chris Del Conte released the following statement (emphasis mine):

“Our student-athletes are a microcosm of society and unfortunately that means some of our players reflect a culture that glorifies drugs and drug use. That mindset is not reflected by TCU nor will it be allowed within athletics.”  - Star Telegram

This is a very interesting story that will linger around for a long time so we’ll get to see if Del Conte stays true to his word.

This year’s list has a total of 328 collegiate players with 55 of those being juniors. We’ve decided to take the list and break it down into different categories.

The next two tables break down the participants by their position. First the defense and next the offense. Not listed are the Kickers (5) & Punters (6).

By Defensive Position

By Offensive Position

There are 11 schools who have at least 7 players invited to the combine. Below is a table showing who these top 11 schools are and how many players they are sending to the combine. One thing that stood out, Boise St is the only non-AQ school on the list.

Participants By School

Participants By School Contd

The last two tables show a break down of participants by conference. The list looks pretty much as you would expect. The top conferences AQ conference are supplying a pretty significant list of the players. It did seem odd to me that the Big East is sending fewer participants than all of the non Div I schools combined.

Participants By Conference*

Participants By Conference Contd*

*The list uses the conference that the school played in during the 2011-2012 season. The players who participated from Missouri (4) and Texas A&M (6) are added to the Big12′s numbers.

Hiller had spent the last 10 seasons at Arkansas State. His last season at ASU was under then head coach, Hugh Freeze, who has since taken the head coaching position at Ole Miss. Just a few weeks ago Hiller was going to follow Coach Freeze to Ole Miss in what was thought to be an off the field position. Since then we have heard Coach Hiller had a few options from schools offering a coaching position, but had yet to accept any offers.

Hiller will head out west to Nevada and join the Mountain West Conference. Nevada has been to a bowl game in each of the last 7 years, including a 24-17 loss to Southern Miss in the Hawai’i Bowl this past season.

We’ve reached out to the Nevada athletic department and will update once we hear back.

The two words I think best describe last night’s event… Entertaining & Confidence

Gus Malzahn - Recruiting Roundup

Coach Malzahn was the first to speak about arguably Arkansas State’s best recruiting class ever and joked “I promise we’ll do better next year“. He then turned the mic over to new offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee who rattled off some good one-liners of his own. At one point during the film session one of ASU’s newest players put a vicious juke move on a defender – “That’s what we call hitting the B button” joked Lashlee. What probably got the most cheers while showing film was Coach Lashlee putting up a highlight of Michael Dyer running 55 yards for a touchdown against the Razorbacks at Razorback stadium. ” I think you are going to like what he does here and where he does it” said Lashlee. “We can keep watching that if y’all want” The crowd cheered as Coach Lashlee rewinded the play 4 or 5 times.

Every coach that took the stage really made sure to connect with the audience. Each one told humerous recruiting stories from them traveling on the road and it seemed as if each one was trying to one-up each other. Wide Receivers coach Casey Woods discussed traveling to 7 different states in a 7 day span while recruiting and how at one point he locked his keys in his vehicle, while it was still running. Coach Ingram joked about him and Coach Patterson hiding behind trash cans while scouting out a kid in Tennessee to make sure no other schools tried to flip him at the last minute “It was as if we were in the movie 24 hours. Coach Patterson was Nick Nolte and I was Eddie Murphy“.

The other thing that really stood out throughout the night was the confidence that each coach portrayed. They all seemed very confident in Coach Malzahn, the players they recruited and their expectations for next season. Coach Malzahn’s character was continously brought up and praised by each member of the staff. Coach Hall touched on it while discussing his interview, saying that Malzahn wanted to make sure there would be no cussing or staying out drinking at “TGIFridays on Friday night“. Then as the coaches went through the recruiting class they raved about their skill level and how they expect them to contribute to the team.

It’s easy to see why the confidence from the coaches spilled over into the audience as each recruit was highlighted on the screen. Even though ASU hasn’t had a top 100 recruiting class since 2007 they managed to finish this season with a Sun Belt Championship 10-3 record. Now that Malzahn and crew have sewed up this recruiting class, which is being labeled the best in the Sun Belt, Red Wolf fans are feeling confident too.

Malzahn had plenty of positives to discuss throughout the segment. As we noted yesterday, this recruiting class is considered one of the best in school history. Arkansas State has the top recruiting class in the Sun Belt and is ranked #75 overall.

Below is the entire video:

In less than 2 months time (even less if you disregard the dead period), Malzahn has help form and sustain the best recruiting class that Arkansas State has ever seen. According to most scouting services, this is the first time ASU has ever held the highest rated recruiting class in the Sun Belt. And only the 2nd time ever to have it’s recruiting class ranked in the top 100 (the last time being 2007).

The day before National Signing Day, ASU is ranked #1 in the Sun Belt and #75 overall, according to Scout.com Football Recruiting. At #75 Arkansas State is ranked higher than 2 Big 12 schools (#86 Kansas St. & #98 Kansas). Last year the Red Wolves recruiting class was ranked #101 in the country, which was their best ranking since 2007. It’s amazing to think that with less than 2 months Malzahn has created the highest ranked recruiting class in Arkansas State history.

Currently Arkansas State is ranked higher than 2 schools from the Big 12, 2 Independents, 9 Conf USA, 12 MAC, 8 Mountain West and 7 WAC schools.

The chart below is data taken from Scout.com and details the last decade of recruiting classes at Arkansas State.

Just a few weeks ago Malzahn was featured on ESPNU during their national championship game coverage. Coach Malzahn made appearances during two shows in which he broke down the defenses of Alabama and LSU. This time Malzahn will be given a prime opportunity to discuss the program he’s building at Arkansas State as well as the players he’s bringing in. Currently Malzahn and the Red Wolves have the highest ranked recruiting class in the Sun Belt.

January 4th. Early afternoon.
National Football Authority – Lisa Turner
http://www.nationalfootballauthority.com/2012/01/auburn-tigers-rb-michael-dyer-filing.html

January 4th. 5:13pm
Auburn Eagle Message Board – Administrator
http://www.auburneagle.com/WEAForum/index.php?topic=42871.0

January 4th. 5:23pm
Fox16 of Little Rock – David Raath
http://www.fox16.com/sports/story/Family-Dyer-transfer-rumors-false/btD8pcKAO0GfJ6J5ZGQQHQ.cspx

January 4th 7:00pm
CBS Sports – Jerry Hinnen
http://eye-on-college-football.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/24156338/34195070

January 4th 7:02pm
CBS Sports – Jay Tate
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/rapid-reports/post/16719737

January 4th 10:27pm
Press-Register – Mike Herndon
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/01/arkansas_state_interim_coach_a.html

January 5th 8:21am
Yahoo Dr. Saturday – Matt Hinton
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Headlinin-8217-Rumors-persist-on-the-Michael-?urn=ncaaf-wp12577

January 5th Late Evening
AuburnUndercover – Phillip Marshall
http://auburn.247sports.com/Article/Dyer-granted-release-by-AU-55840

January 8th
Astate Nation – James Bryant
http://arkansasstate.scout.com/2/1146691.html

January 9th Afternoon
Fox16 – David Raath
http://www.fox16.com/sports/story/Dyer-to-Arkansas-State-a-done-deal/8omhqgQ-n02kC2WN8_kQ9A.cspx

January 17th
ASU Athletic Department
http://www.astateredwolves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=35558&SPID=2798&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205363504&DB_OEM_ID=7200