Anderson counting on ASU ballgame

Blake Anderson is planning on being at Centennial Bank Stadium in Jonesboro at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. He and Arkansas State University have a date with Tulsa before the Red Wolves enter Sun Belt Conference play next week.

But after last week’s game against the University of Central Arkansas was postponed due to the

Red Wolves being unable to field a safe number of players among a depleted position group, Anderson knows his team has some obstacles in its way before playing the Golden Hurricane. The postponement was in large part due to covid-19 testing and contact tracing — issues programs will likely face each week this season.

“We’ve still got to pass three tests this week,” Anderson said. “But all indications are that we should have a roster ready to play on Saturday. I think we’re all dealing with what dayto-day changes are, but we feel pretty good with what we’ve got, where we’re at moving forward to the weekend.”

ASU’s decision to postpone its matchup with UCA came after the Red Wolves played without 15 players — including nine starters — in a win over Kansas State on Sept. 12. It’s unclear how many of those were coronavirus related, but Anderson did say he expects to have most of those guys back this week.

If they pass their three tests, of course.

“I think we’re getting closer to a full-strength roster compared to where we were against Kansas State,” Anderson said. “A lot of that is still going to be day-to-day and out of our control, but we do have the ability to get a handful of guys back that we were not able to take to Kansas State.”

ASU was without five offensive linemen, three defensive backs, three linebackers, two wide receivers, one running back and one long snapper against Kansas State. Anderson did say he expects junior running back Marcel Murray’s return from injury this week.

As for the other players, defensive coordinator David Duggan and offensive coordinator Keith Heckenedorf feel confident most of their starters will be back. Specifically, Duggan expects the return of linebackers Caleb Bonner, Derrick Bean and Jeffmario Brown, and Heckendorf expects a “full group” on the offensive line, which was without starting center senior Jacob Still.

Anderson said after the postponement, the Red Wolves decided to take a couple days off from practice to let guys recover physically and mentally. ASU is attempting to take all the right precautions, even moving Monday’s news conference to Zoom instead of in-person.

“You want to be really smart and be really careful,” Anderson said. “I don’t think any of us completely understand what we’re dealing with, so we want to be very, very cautious. And when you start getting thin at a position, you want to be really smart about how you move forward. So we’ve been extremely cautious this week just to make sure that we know exactly how everybody’s feeling and making sure we’re not rushing anybody back into activity.”

Arkansas State was tested Sunday and will be tested again Wednesday and Friday before Saturday’s game in accordance with Tulsa’s and American Athletic Conference’s guidelines. And while Anderson expects this week will go better than last, he knows he’ll be holding his breath from test-to-test all season.

“That’s just the world we live in,” Anderson said. “When you consider three tests in a week, all the way up until Friday — and you see what happened with Houston and Baylor. Those guys were scheduled to play a game and had to adjust on Friday. So yeah, it’s just the world we live in — hoping that you’re able to get through the week without any issues and that you’re able to play the game as scheduled.”

Anderson