The Red Wolves' triumph on Saturday proves that the team hasn't given up on their head coach - and Jones certainly hasn't given up on them, either
JONESBORO, Ark. — On the heels of a four-game losing skid that saw his Arkansas State Red Wolves drop to 1-4 going into Saturday’s contest against Texas State, it would’ve been understandable if Arkansas State head coach Butch Jones was hanging his head.
Aside from a Week 1 beatdown of FCS SEMO, the Red Wolves looked lost over the first five games of Jones’ fifth season. One-possession losses to the likes of Iowa State and Kennesaw State were complimented by losses to Arkansas and Louisiana-Monroe where Arkansas State was thoroughly outplayed.
With a minute to play in Saturday’s game against the Texas State Bobcats, Jones and the Red Wolves were staring down a 30-24 deficit and a 1-5 start to 2025. And even with the relative security of a contract extension with ASU that runs through 2029, Jones had to be feeling some heat.
But quarterback Jaylen Raynor and the Red Wolves made those worries moot, at least for one week. Raynor led a masterful touchdown drive. A successful PAT and subsequent stop gave Jones and Arkansas State their second victory of 2025 – one Jones christened as “arguably one of the greatest wins in Arkansas State history” – and their first in Sun Belt competition.
Relive the thrilling finish‼️#WolvesUp🐺 I #PoundTheRock🪨🔨 pic.twitter.com/egXORbpavn
— Arkansas State Football (@AStateFB) October 5, 2025
More than anything, the win proved that Jones can still get it done.
“I bet you this morning, I had at least 15 text messages from former players about, ‘What you do works, Coach. Stay the course.’,” Jones said. “(Former Arkansas State safety) Trevian Thomas calls me the other night to let me know he’s on the (Carolina Panthers) 53-man roster, and he says, ‘Coach, your stuff works. Our program works.'”
Jones and the Red Wolves were forced to stay the course on Saturday evening in a topsy-turvy game that featured 41 fourth-quarter points. Every time the Bobcats put together a clutch scoring drive, Arkansas State answered. And when Texas State made the fatal mistake of missing an extra point that would’ve made the score 31-24, ASU capitalized on their opponent’s mistake – something it hadn’t been able to do over the course of its four-game losing streak.
“This football team has gone through more ebbs and flows than any team I’ve ever been a part of,” said Jones, now in his 16th season as a head coach. “Today was a microcosm of ebbs and flows, and we didn’t blink.”
Those words speak volumes for Jones, who is at his fourth stop as a college football head coach and has 194 games of head coaching experience under his belt.
Part of that experience is knowing what it’s like to coach in games where there is a sense of urgency to win. Going into the 2025 season, Jones’ record at ASU was 19-31: not awful, but not exactly where a program used to winning conference titles and consistently going to bowl games wants to be.
The 1-4 start to 2025 wasn’t ideal, either. But at a point in the season where some squads would simply lay down and quit, Jones’ team didn’t. They stayed the course, reaped their award and have momentum going into their Oct. 14 tilt with South Alabama.
“I think it speaks volumes in their belief in the program,” Jones said of his team’s effort on Saturday. “Adversity is good. You know what I say all the time, good problems are good if you solve them, old problems are not good because that means you haven’t solved them. But our team didn’t blink, and they just kept fighting.”
The fight that was shown on Saturday evening at Centennial Bank Stadium will have to be exhibited over Arkansas State’s final six games if the Red Wolves are to make a bowl game under Jones for the third consecutive season. The Red Wolves will have to win four of their last six in order to get a postseason bid, but Jones assessed his team as being relatively on schedule.
Thank you doesn’t cover what this group does for us to create a home field advantage! Ready for the season with the band backing us up! Thank you!!! #WolvesUp https://t.co/HuH7nSnVbz
— Butch Jones (@CoachButchJones) August 15, 2025
“I thought a realistic goal was to be 3-3 (through six games), at best 4-2, we’re 2-4,” Jones said. “We’re only one game off, and we just played our best football game of the year against one of the best teams we’ve played.”
Time will tell whether or not Arkansas State can bounce back from their slow start and continue to grind out wins, but at the very least, the Red Wolves’ triumph on Saturday proves that the team hasn’t given up on their head coach – and Jones certainly hasn’t given up on them, either.
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