Arkansas State Football: Omar Bayless for Heisman

The Arkansas State Red Wolves football team is off to a 3-2 start, thanks in large part to several huge offensive outings. Perhaps the most important piece of their offensive puzzle isn’t a quarterback or running back, but a senior wide receiver that is making national waves.

Omar Bayless is off to a record-breaking start for the Red Wolves, and he’s still got more than half a season to go. It’s time he gets recognized at the national level for the outstanding work he has done within the realm of the Sun Belt and Group of Five football.

As a preface, let it be known that Bayless has no shot to win the Heisman trophy, as the award is traditionally given to an outstanding player on a championship-contending team. However, perhaps a bit of hyperbole will catch the attention of the masses and bring a proper level of exposure to one of the hardest working young men in college football.

Consider this the official launch of the “Bayless for Heisman” campaign.

Through five games, Bayless leads the entire FBS in receiving yards and receiving yards per game. He’s posted 689 yards through those five contests, for a modest average of 137.8 yards per game. Bayless also stands alone at fifth in the nation in receiving touchdowns with 7 on the year. Hawaii’s Cedric Byrd holds the top spot with 9, while three players are tied for second with 8.

Bayless is one of just three players with over 600 yards receiving so far this season. Antonio Gandy-Golden of Liberty sits just a single yard behind Bayless at 688, while Tylan Wallace of Oklahoma State has racked up 618 on the year. The next name on the list is Darrell Stewart Jr. of Michigan State at 556, a full 133 yards behind the top spot. In other words, Bayless and Gandy-Golden are in a class of their own.

On top of being in the top-five in both yards and touchdowns, Bayless is also ninth in the nation in receptions at 7.2 per game.

Bayless is making waves on a national level so it’s no surprise he’s etching his name all over the Arkansas State record books.

Last week, Bayless tied the Arkansas State all-time receiving touchdown record with his 16th score when he took the first offensive play of the game a full 92-yards to the house. The score also put him in a tie for fifth-most receiving touchdowns in a season in A-State history with 7 this season. He needs two more to tie fourth place, and three more to tie Tres Houston, Alfred Bentley, and John Koldus for the most in a season with 10.

He is also on pace to break into the top-10 in A-State history in terms of receiving yards in a single season. Currently, he is just 94 yards behind Robert Kilow (783 yards in 1999) for 10th place. His current average of 137.8 yards per game puts him well on pace to break Dwayne Frampton’s 2011 record of 1,156, but sustaining that massive average seems unlikely, despite his greatness. However, the record is still well within sight. Bayless needs just 267 more yards to jump to second place, and 468 to break the record. Even if his average drops below 100 yards per game over the next seven contests, he will flirt with that top spot.

On top of that, Bayless also has a very realistic chance to record the most single-season 100-yard games in school history. He’s racked up over 100 yards in four of five games so far this season. The current single-season record is five, held by both Frampton (2011) and Kilow (2000). Barring injury, it seems highly unlikely that Bayless will fail to hit the century mark at least once in the final seven games of the season.

And the records don’t stop there. Bayless is currently seventh on the all-time Arkansas State receiving yards list. He’s just 7 yards away from sixth place, and 84 from fifth. Both of those marks could be hit this weekend against Georgia State. To break into the top-two, Bayless still needs 336 more yards. Taylor Stockemer’s 2,146 career yards sit in that two-spot, though it is lightyears away from J.D McKissic’s outstanding 2,826 career yards. Bayless would need over 1,000 additional yards this season to eclipse McKissic, which statistically is all but impossible. It does remain very likely, though, that Bayless will at least contend for a top-two spot before it is all said and done.

Virtually the only receiving record that has yet to be mentioned is career receptions. Bayless is currently tied for ninth place on the list with 120 catches in his illustrious career. He needs just 33 more to jump all the way to second place, currently 152 by Levi Dejohnette. At his current pace over 7.2 receptions per game, he is well on his way to that mark, and could realistically do so by mid-November, if not sooner. Again, though, taking over the top spot is all but impossible, as McKissic set the bar unbelievably high at 289 career catches.

The only thing crazier than his stats is the way he goes about racking up those ridiculous numbers.

In the 2019 season opener, he held a monopoly on receiving touchdowns, catching four-of-four from quarterback Logan Bonner, including a 7-yarder on the opening offensive play of the season. In the second contest against UNLV, Bayless put a bow on the game with a 71-yard score early in the fourth quarter to put the Red Wolves up 40-10, crushing any hopes of a Rebel comeback. That 71-yarder is now third on the list of his top plays of the season, as insane as that sounds.

Bayless had what was considered the highlight of the year for the Red Wolves in a home game versus the Southern Illinois Salukis. With the game still tight, Bonner found Bayless for an 89-yard score midway through the third quarter to put A-State up 38-21. Then, somehow, he was able to top that play as well.

In the Sun Belt opener against Troy, Bayless scored a 92-yard touchdown on the first offensive play, setting the tone for one of the wildest games in recent A-State history. He would finish the contest with an astounding career-high 213 yards, the third-most in a single game in A-State history and the seventh most in the nation this season.

If nothing else, Bayless has become perhaps the most reliable target at Arkansas State since McKissic set the Sun Belt marks in nearly every statistic. He is the obvious leader of a stacked receiving corps and has asserted himself as one of the greatest receivers not just in the Sun Belt, but in all of FBS football.

The senior wideout has been on an absolute tear dating back to the final game of the 2018 season. Over those six games, he has five 100+ yard outings, 7 touchdowns (all this season) and has averaged 136.3 yards per game, just under his 2019 mark thus far.

He’s a model of consistency at this point and has been a favored target for two A-State quarterbacks this season. After Bonner went down with a season-ending thumb injury, Layne Hatcher wasted no time establishing Bayless as the top target, finding him 10 times for 213 yards against Troy.

If he continues to play at the level he’s currently at, he will virtually re-write the A-State record book. So far, he’s shown no signs of slowing down. Though the Heisman Trophy is essentially out of the picture, the reigning Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Week could very well trade-in that weekly title for the yearly honor as a cherry-on-top for his unforgettable career as an Arkansas State Red Wolf.

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