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badgerwolf Offline
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From the Shreveport Times (http://www.shreveporttimes.com):


ASU coach knows about upsets
September 10, 2004
By Glenn Guilbeau

gguilbeau@gannett.com

BATON ROUGE --- Arkansas State coach Steve Roberts knows what it's like to slay Goliath.

His Division I-AA Northwestern State team knocked off Division I Texas Christian University 27-24 in overtime on Sept. 22, 2001, in front of 30,409 at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas.

It was one of the biggest victories in Demons football history and helped propel Roberts to his present job in 2002. There's no telling where Roberts might find himself next season if his Indians (0-1) were to upset No. 6 LSU (1-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday in Tiger Stadium.

"It is a very difficult and challenging task to play in front of over 90,000 people in that type of environment against that type of football team with that type of tradition and recent success they've had," Roberts said. "It will be a tremendous challenge, there's no doubt. I'm looking forward to it."

Arkansas State went into Columbia, Mo., last week and fell to No. 17 Missouri and Heisman Trophy quarterback Brad Smith 52-20 as the Tigers totalled 506 yards. The Indians of the Division I Sun Belt Conference are 40-point underdogs to LSU.

"As I told our football team, it is more about the journey this year than it is about the single trips," Roberts said. "I think that a lot of things that occurred last week will help prepare us for that journey. It's going to be fun and it is going to be challenging, but I'm looking forward to it."

Roberts remembers the fun he had running across the field at TCU when the Horned Frogs missed a field goal that would've tied the game in overtime but instead left the Demons winners.

"I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack," he said. "Because I hadn't run that much in quite awhile. That was a huge win."

Former LSU quarterback Craig Nall of Alexandria led Northwestern State to victory that day by completing 18 of 35 passes for 326 yards and two touchdowns. Trailing 24-17 in the final minutes of regulation, Nall took the Demons 80 yards in nine plays to the tying touchdown. He hit former Captain Shreve star Jeremy Lofton for the 14-yard score with 50 seconds to play."

And that was not a pedestrian TCU team at the time. The year before in 2000, the Horned Frogs went 10-2, tied for the Western Athletic Conference title and finished 21st in the nation, which was one notch ahead of LSU. They were 25-10 from 1998-2000 with three straight bowl appearances, but they did lose their coach, Dennis Franchione, to Alabama after the 2000 season. TCU started 2001 off with a 38-10 win over SMU and had a pretty 21-7 loss to Nebraska before the Demons came to town.

Roberts has not brought up his upset of TCU to his players this season yet.

"We're worried about Arkansas State," he said. "We're concerned about what we do about what we do to put ourselves in a position to be as successful as we can possibly be in every aspect of the game."

While the Indians couldn't stop Smith, they totalled 438 yards themselves as quarterback Nick Noce completed 19 of 26 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns with an interception.

"I was really pleasantly surprised with our ability to protect our quarterbacks," Roberts said. "We gave up one sack on the night. And with everything that Missouri showed us -- line movements and zone blitzes and man blitzes -- I was really, really pleased. But we had too many penalties, way too many mental-type of errors that took us out of a couple of situations where we know we could have scored some more points. Hopefully we'll get those corrected."

Arkansas State also lost its quarterback in the third quarter when the nose of the football stuck Noce in the stomach on a tackle. He threw up on the field and left the game dehydrated. He is expected to start Saturday, though the plan is also to play backup Devin Hollins again. Roberts has also prepared a third quarterback for possible playing time. That is junior Brian Hicks of Natchitoches Central High.

In the meantime, Roberts is praying for rain, which apparently slowed LSU down in its 22-21 win over 18-point underdog Oregon State last week.

"I think the weather really hampered both teams' opportunities to let the athletes be the athletes they are," Roberts said. "They played in a severe downpour and in the mud that followed.
09-11-2004 11:05 AM
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SwampHound Offline
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Sorry about the outcome of the game guys :frown: LSU is tough and very good team as much as I hate to say that 03-puke
09-12-2004 10:35 AM
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badgerwolf Offline
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SwampHound Wrote:Sorry about the outcome of the game guys :frown: LSU is tough and very good team as much as I hate to say that 03-puke

Yeah, I doubt that even the rain would have helped us. We simply do not have a D; our freshmen will mature overtime, but DAMN!
:D
09-12-2004 10:50 AM
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