Wednesday Night Football!

Both GASO & ARST have a favorable offensive match up in this game. With Georgia Southern, you'd hope it would be their running game, and you'd be right. While haven't been as explosive as last year, their ground game still travels well and ARST actually fields the lowest ranked run defense they've played this year. ARST has played a couple of good running teams, which has hurt their stats this early in the season, so I don't necessarily think they'll end up having a worse run defense than Southern Alabama or UL-Monroe at the end of the season. The point is, though, that they haven't been winning the match up against good running teams.

For the Red Wolves, their passing game started clicking when they made the switch from QB Voytik to Justice Hansen. Hansen is listed as #1 on the depth chart at ourlads.com right now, so you have to assume he'll start. Georgia Southern hasn't been good against the pass, giving up 8.4 ypp and allowing teams to throw for 0.6 yards more per pass than they usually do.

Georgia Southern's run defense has been pretty good, and has been playing better as the season progresses. Arkansas State's running game has been a major disappointment this year. Their leading rusher Warren Wand averages less than 4 yards per carry. So yes, if the Red Wolves are smart (and I'm not sure they will be, given their record this year), they'll pass as much as they can get away with tonight.

Arkansas State's pass defense has been pretty poor, but that is largely due to a couple of games against the good offenses of Auburn (yes, I said it!) and Toledo. Georgia Southern doesn't pass much, and can be erratic when they do so, but in two out of three FBS games this year they've thrown for a very high ypp average. Any successful passing for GASO tonight is a bonus.

Final Score Prediction: Georgia Southern 35 -- Arkansas State 21