Info for Jeff Woody - Arkansas St.

shadow

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Apr 11, 2006
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Hi @Connor_Ferguson - since Woody asked on Kicking It about this, can you pass it along?

Arkansas St is about 1 hour northwest of Memphis in Jonesboro, Arkansas which is about 9.5 hours from Ames. Didn't seem as picturesque as I thought driving home. Jonesboro is a town of ~80K people.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Jonesboro the night of the bowl game just to get us closer a drive home the next day.

Turned out that the Embassy Suites is right on campus for Arkansas St just next door from the football stadium so if you want to go to the game ISU plays there in September 2025, I'd recommend staying there. It felt like the hotel was only 5-10 years old and was really nice.

The football team is currently coached by Butch Jones, is in a stadium that holds ~30K people, and had some nice years in 2011-2013 when they were coached by Hugh Freeze (2011), Gus Malzahn (2012), and Bryan Harsin (2013).

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Yeah, my brother lived in Jonesboro for a few years and has worked on projects there a couple more stretches. Arkansas State are the Red Wolves and it would be interesting for us to see them in Ames.
 
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You can thank Paul Rhoads. His teams in his final years were so bad, Pollard had to sweeten the pot to get low level teams to agree on playing ISU.
Wouldn’t they want to play us to get paid and maybe a win?
 
Wouldn’t they want to play us to get paid and maybe a win?

When you suck, decent non-P5 teams have the upper hand. Sure you can get paid, but then you get paid again when you bring in a P5 school you think you can beat and they sellout their home stadium.

They had were coming off 25 wins in 4 years when this deal was made and were pretty good for non-P5.
 
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Looks like this trend will continue for several years. Playing Bowling Green in Ames, then on the road. Same for Tulane after that.
 
I'm just curious the cost for paying them to come to us vs. us going to them and losing all the ticket revenue. Plus when Cytown gets going any lost revenue from that... not sure maybe the timelines don't match up there. My main grip is the losing a home tailgating and home game aspect of it.
 
I'm just curious the cost for paying them to come to us vs. us going to them and losing all the ticket revenue. Plus when Cytown gets going any lost revenue from that... not sure maybe the timelines don't match up there. My main grip is the losing a home tailgating and home game aspect of it.
That sounds like a no brainer…in a vacuum. The problem is when there’s another home game, season ticket prices go up. How many people would just say screw it and not buy season tickets if the cost went up $70 a ticket? And if they don’t raise prices, then the money comes from what they are paying the coaches. Look, I’m all for as many home games as possible, but if you really believe that Pollard hasn’t gone over the cost benefit analysis with a fine tooth comb over a span of 20 years, I don’t know what to tell you.
 
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That sounds like a no brainer…in a vacuum. The problem is when there’s another home game, season ticket prices go up. How many people would just say screw it and not buy season tickets if the cost went up $70 a ticket? And if they don’t raise prices, then the money comes from what they are paying the coaches. Look, I’m all for as many home games as possible, but if you really believe that Pollard hasn’t gone over the cost benefit analysis with a fine tooth comb over a span of 20 years, I don’t know what to tell you.
For sure, in pollard i trust. He is much smarter than I am. It's just after the Ohio game and then the Memphis game (different set of circumstances for sure but sorta similar kinda) I just don't think it's worth traveling to non power teams for the non-con.

anyways I got this thread off topic, sorry, I'll shut up now
 
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I have no problem playing @ G5 teams, just wish they were destination games. Nothing against the fine folks of Jonesboro, but a game in the mountains or somewhere on the coast would be fun.
 
When you suck, decent non-P5 teams have the upper hand. Sure you can get paid, but then you get paid again when you bring in a P5 school you think you can beat and they sellout their home stadium.

They had were coming off 25 wins in 4 years when this deal was made and were pretty good for non-P5.
I don’t think it matters how good the team was ten years ago. It’s about saving money by giving them a home game.
 
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Yeah, my brother lived in Jonesboro for a few years and has worked on projects there a couple more stretches. Arkansas State are the Red Wolves and it would be interesting for us to see them in Ames.
The website for the Red Wolves used to be Go Red Wolves, so when it appeared in the address bar, it appeared as goredwolves. I used to know an Arkansas State grad and boy was he pissed whenever I asked him how the Gored Wolves were doing.
 
All i know is, bet the over on wins by Ark St the year we play them.

Every noncon we schedule wins their gd conference the year we play them.

NDST, SDST, Ohio, Toledo, Kent St, et al. They could be wet dogsh!t right now, but 4 years from now - JUGGERNAUT!
 
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All i know is, bet the over on wins by Ark St the year we play them.

Every noncon we schedule wins their gd conference the year we play them.

NDST, SDST, Ohio, Toledo, Kent St, et al. They could be wet dogsh!t right now, but 4 years from now - JUGGERNAUT!
You forgot Wyoming from an eon ago.
 
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You can thank Paul Rhoads. His teams in his final years were so bad, Pollard had to sweeten the pot to get low level teams to agree on playing ISU.
This has been happening since McCarney was here. It has nothing to do with CPR.
 
This has been happening since McCarney was here. It has nothing to do with CPR.

These games, specifically, have to do with ISU being a bad team at the time of the scheduling in 2014, which was when Rhoads was at the helm. But you’re right this has been happening for years due to the bad history, historically, of the program.

This type of scheduling doesn’t happen if sustained success is occurring.
 

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