Arkansas State opens its home slate against a West Georgia squad that just went 8-3 and cracked the FCS Top 25 — this isn't the usual September cupcake.
−Offensive line development flagged as the swing factor
Butch Jones is entering year 5 in Jonesboro off a 7-6 season that ended with a Xbox Bowl win over Missouri State, and the Red Wolves' offense is the story this preseason. Jaylen Raynor is out of the program, which means the starting job is a genuine camp battle between Ethan Crawford, Trey Owens, Drew Dickey and Jérémy St-Hilaire heading into the Saturday, September 12 opener.
Whoever wins that competition inherits two of the Sun Belt's more productive returning receivers, so the ceiling is real if the new starter can distribute the ball and the offensive line — the unit A-State insiders keep flagging as the swing factor — holds up. West Georgia, meanwhile, isn't walking into this as a body-bag opponent. Third-year coach Steve Englehart came over from Presbyterian and brought quarterback Collin Hurst with him, a passer who threw for over 5,000 yards the last two seasons and was the Pioneer League's Offensive Player of the Year in 2024.
The Wolves backed that pedigree up immediately, ripping off a 5-0 start in 2025 — the first time a transitioning FCS program did that against FCS competition since North Dakota State in 2006 — and finishing 8-3 with a #22 national ranking. They'd have had a real case for the FCS playoffs had they been postseason-eligible in year two. That's the level of program Arkansas State is welcoming into Centennial Bank Stadium, not a scrimmage.
Arkansas State's calling card under Jones has been depth and program stability — three straight bowl trips is nothing to sneeze at in the Sun Belt — but an unsettled QB room in Week 1 is exactly the spot where a well-coached, momentum-carrying FCS team can make things uncomfortable. West Georgia isn't walking in staring up at the scoreboard; they're walking in believing they belong.
The bigger question for Arkansas State is whether the pieces gel fast enough. Ten returning starters, seven of them on offense, is a solid foundation, but foundations don't matter if the new quarterback and a shaky O-line are still figuring each other out on opening weekend. West Georgia, by contrast, returns continuity at the top with Hurst and Englehart's staff already installed and comfortable, even if the jump in competition level from the UAC to a Sun Belt roadtrip is untested.
However this shakes out, it's a useful measuring-stick game for both programs — Arkansas State finding out what it has at quarterback before conference play, and West Georgia finding out if last year's breakout was real or a product of a soft UAC slate.
