A stingy defense and balanced offense led the Arkansas State football team to a 37-17 rout over Louisiana Saturday afternoon at Centennial Bank Stadium.
The Red Wolves (5-4, 3-2 SBC) limited the Ragin’ Cajuns (5-4, 2-3) – the league’s top rushing offense (11th nationally) entering the day – to just 64 yards rushing, the team’s fewest in a conference game since rushing for 50 against A-State in 2016. The win marked A-State’s first over the Cajuns since 2017.
A-State totaled 426 yards of offense – 232 on the ground and 194 through the air – and held Louisiana to 327 while converting all six of its red-zone trips. The Red Wolves also controlled possession a season-high 34:53.
Quarterback Jaylen Raynor and running back Ja’Quez Cross presented a formidable 1-2 punch, combining for 305 yards of offense. Raynor passed for 194 yards and rushed for 53 yards with two touchdowns, while Cross ran for 58 yards on 13 carries and led the team in receiving with six catches for 66 yards.
The Red Wolves’ defense forced two turnovers, including a 16-yard scoop-and-score by Javante Mackey late in the fourth quarter. Trevian Thomas led the charge defensively with seven tackles and a pass break-up, with Keyron Crawford added seven tackles which included three for loss and two sacks, including the sack that forced the fourth-quarter fumble.
Zak Wallace, who led A-State with 88 yards rushing on 15 attempts, put the Red Wolves on the board first with an 18-yard touchdown, but the Cajuns answered on their next play from scrimmage with an 87-yard strike from Zeon Chriss to Peter LeBlanc. A-State then responded with an 11-play scoring drive capped by a 2-yard rushing TD by Raynor to give the Scarlet and Black a 14-7 lead after one quarter.
Dominic Zvada drilled field goals of 41 and 20 yards to push the Red Wolves’ lead to 20-7, but Louisiana answered with a 24-yard kick by Kenneth Almendares trimmed the deficit to 20-10 at the half.
The Ragin’ Cajuns turned to the ground game on their first drive of the second half, churning up 77 yards in 11 plays to make it 20-17 following a 2-yard rushing score by Chriss, who also completed 12 of 17 passes for 171 yards. A-State promptly answered with another 10-plus play scoring drive, capped by Raynor’s 2-yard rush to put the score at 27-17 after three.
Louisiana drove inside A-State’s 30 early in the fourth, but Eddie Smith picked off a Chandler Fields pass at the 12 to end the threat.
Zvada later tacked on a 30-yard field goal with 1:16 left to make it a 30-17 affair, followed by Mackey’s 16-yard fumble recovery just 14 seconds later to close out the scoring.
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