First Look into: Saturdays in Jonesboro

The most interesting part of college football is rarely the box score. It’s the people, the prep, the traditions, and the small details that turn a kickoff in Jonesboro into an all-day experience. We recorded a first pilot conversation in the Arkansas State Media Network Studio to explain why we’re launching Saturdays In Jonesboro and what kind of access we want to create for Red Wolves fans. 

We get into the real shape of an Arkansas State game day: tailgating culture, community leaders who help build the vibe, new fan areas like the Den Zone, and why the “behind the scenes” work matters as much as the action on the field. We also pull back the curtain on what it takes to run a broadcast and coordinate game day operations, because most fans never see the hours of effort that happen long before the team runs out of the tunnel. 

Then we zoom out to the bigger story of Arkansas State football and athletics. We reflect on the 2011 to 2019 era and the kind of winning seasons that created lifelong memories, and we talk about what it takes to rebuild and sustain that energy today. With NIL and the transfer portal changing how rosters evolve, we want deeper conversations with current players, former players, coaches, and the alumni who still bleed scarlet and black. And we’re not stopping at football: the same storytelling can spotlight basketball, baseball, golf, track and field, and everything rising across Arkansas State athletics. 

Subscribe, share this with a fellow Red Wolves fan, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part of a Saturday in Jonesboro do you want us to explore first?

Transcript

First Test Recording In Studio

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thank you for joining me today. Um, what is officially our very first test recording here at the Arkansas State Media Network Studio. So we're um we're excited. We got a few revisions left of the studio, which will be done tomorrow morning, which we're excited about. But thank you for coming in and join me.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

This is something that I've been looking forward to for a long time now. Ever since you guys came to us with the idea of doing a podcast Saturdays in Jonesboro. It's something that I continue to believe will be a big asset to Arkansas State, to the football program, athletics in general, just because it kind of gives our fans a behind the scenes look at everything that's going on on a particular game day. And there's so much that goes on during a Saturday in Jonesboro. So we want our fans to be able to see that from every single angle.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah. And that's the thing with what the great stuff that's happening here at A State. I mean, obviously, you're here, you've been here for 21 years now.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

This is my 21st year.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Okay. So that's a you've seen a lot of change happen over the years, you know, and with doing this media network, with you know, working with Chancellor Shields of how do we get the great news out there about what's happening on A State? Everything from athletics to academics to what's our community and partnerships

Why Game Day Needs A Podcast

SPEAKER_00 1:20

that we're going to be highlighting in this pilot program, you know, it's really important to talk about these things because I know you have a podcast that you do currently called Second to None, which is, I think, one of the most appropriate names ever because being Arkansas State University and being kind of tucked away here in Northeast Arkansas, obviously the bigger school across the state get tends to get a little bit more attention. And so with that, but people don't always come over here and see what's happening. I know me personally, I, you know, being back on campus for the you know last couple of months now, I didn't see that was the first time in probably over a decade that I've been over here and I'm walking around going, gosh, look at all these one, the new buildings, the facilities that athletics has, the resources available to students and academics, but all the things that are happening, and it's such a primed up area with a community like this to bring more exposure to this university and then broaden it across the region because there's so many great things happening here, which is why I'm excited to really get into media network. Um, and then more particularly your show, you know, talking about what these game day experiences are like in Jonesboro on Saturdays because there's a lot going on from tailgating, community, everything else outside of just the product on the field. You know, we'll be getting to into that a little bit with yourself and some other people, you know, they're going to be hosts with us. But um, you know, share for people that maybe don't know a little bit about what is a Saturday like in Jonesboro.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

You know, there's so many different aspects going on during a Saturday in Jonesboro. And I think that's one thing this particular podcast can really address. And I want to talk to everybody, whether it be current players, former players, current and former coaches, but we want to see the fan angle and see what people are doing behind the scenes. We have as solid of a core fan base as there is anywhere in the country. And I think that's just evident in every single thing that we do, whether it be our coaches' shows during the week. We do our radio show out at Lost Pizza every single week during football and basketball season. We're going to be doing it during baseball season this year as well as we go through these final few weeks of the season. But we always pack that particular show. It doesn't matter if the team is winning or losing. Now, fortunately, we've been doing a lot more winning across the board in athletics, so that makes it a lot more fun. But we have such a good core fan base that I think wants to see every aspect of what's going on. You're in Arkansas State, football games, basketball games, baseball games, you name it. But there's a lot of people that make it happen and enhancing the Tailgate atmosphere. I

Tailgates And Fan Experiences

SPEAKER_01 4:10

think of people in the community like a Ted Hergett or a Davy Carter that really stepped up here in the last couple of years to make that alpha pack experience so cool out in the Tailgate area and really enhanced game day for our fans. And then you look at all the people on game day. Well, what are they doing? It's not just the people on the field, it's everybody that makes it happen, whether it be the marketing side, the broadcasting side. I'm gonna have my broadcast team in studio, and I'm gonna talk with uh my friends Darion Griswold and JC Cox and talk about everything that we do on a particular game day, just see, just so our fans can see another angle of what happens there. So that's something that we want to do and let people kind of in on the experience itself. We want this to be something that is great for the passive fans, the people that uh maybe the casual fans that sometimes come out to an Arkansas State game. We want them to be right there with those that bleed scarlet and black. We want to take care of those fans as well and for them to be able to see everything that goes on during a particular game day.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, and there's so many exciting things happening. I know the Den zone that, you know, right there by the pond or lake, if whichever you want to call it, you know, just to the west side of the parking lot behind the football stadium, there, you know, you have that with their kind of new game day experiencing with the bar atmosphere and the TVs and everything they have going there. There's so many exciting enhancements happening. And I think with having these conversations, and the reason why a media network like what we're talking of doing in these individual shows is so important is because people don't always, it's hard to really get a grasp of all the moving parts of what it takes to do this. You know, you think of a football game as a fan, okay. I'm gonna go, I'm only you know 90% concerned with what happens on the field, you know, and that's it's always gonna be winning secures everything. But I think there's so many things that people don't know that go on in the background. Like I personally have no clue what it takes to actually run a broadcast for a football game. I mean, I know you and I've chatted a little bit about I'm going, I'm setting up my stuff, I'm at, you know, game day four plus hours beforehand to make sure everything's working and everything. There's so many elements that go into it. And so I think the goal with this is to bring your even your rabid diehard fans and just your casual fans and everybody else into realizing there's a lot going into this. You know, the people that do these things are what make it so special, and it's a special community in that aspect where you have these people that are, you know, Ted and some other people that you mentioned specifically, they're really

The Work Fans Never See

SPEAKER_00 6:50

trying to bring that experience together for everyone. And it's, you know, it's a whole family thing. How do we get everybody in here? You know, I'm thinking I'm already thinking with this, what we're doing, you know, fast forward to this fall, I've got a little two-year-old. I'd love to bring my wife and a little two-year-old over here for a game day and experience it and have them experience a game and see what a tailgate's like and just create that atmosphere. Um, but me personally, having never been here for a game day, I don't know what it's like. You know, and I can see little videos here and there, but hearing people talk about how it actually is and what it takes to do it, that's what builds that special connection.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

And we know that we can do it. It can be really, really big at Arkansas State. It's happened in the past, and there was such a special time from 2011 to 2019 where Arkansas State football was at its highest level ever. Nine straight winning seasons, nine straight bowl games, five conference championships. And we saw the fans turn out in droves, and people always referenced the sellout crowd against Middle Tennessee, the final home game of the 2012 season. The conference championship was on the line, and the Red Wolves were able to blow out middle 45 to nothing, and just a perfect day all the way around for our fan base. And that was on a chilly day in early December. So you can picture when the weather is good in September, just how great the atmosphere can be from the tailgate to being in the stands on game day and watching the team run out of the tunnel. And I know Coach Jones put so much into trying to enhance the experience for the fans. And we're in a really good period right now for Arkansas State football. There's only a small number of teams that have been able to win bowl games in back-to-back seasons. And they've been to bowl games now in three consecutive years. And I think we're just getting started. It's going to continue to get better around A State football.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, the excitement whenever you walk through that football facility and you see what they're building there is really exciting. Um, just from a, you know, in the middle of the spring before spring practice, even just seeing the excitement and the buzz that's happening and seeing all the work that coach and his staff are putting into it. I know we've got some new staff that came on board. I believe it's 55 new players are in the door this year. And so, you know, what I'm excited about, these different elements is we'll have, you know, Justin Parks is going to be leading our show around, getting to meet the players a little bit more and inside the den of as it is, you know. But with you, I think celebrating that legacy of the history that this program has, and you having been here for 20 years, you know, you've seen some of what it can be. And it's always, you know, being able to speak to that people because you got to think about, you know, from a just taking a student perspective, every year I've noticed A State continues to push record number of students on campus. You know, with is kind of aging us a little bit here. Early 2000s into kind of that 2010s, these kids were very, very young and had no idea, you know, the stuff that Arkansas State was doing. And so being able to excite them, even too. I mean, that's the great thing I love about, you know, nobody's you know foreign to what a podcast is, but a lot of people don't realize the reach and impact. And with these, a lot of these even younger audiences, and my parents even listen to podcasts all the time now, but with these younger audiences, they may not really know some of these players that have, you know, been community heroes or program heroes, even if you will, that you know that they don't know anything about those people or

Remembering Peak Red Wolves Years

SPEAKER_00 10:30

the success, you know, that was on a grand scale, like you mentioned. They're gonna have the ability to hear that in depth through these conversations and connect to it.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

And Justin Parks is a great example because he's a guy that when he came in as a true freshman, it wasn't a deal where Butch Jones hesitated to make him a leader of this team. He was a true freshman. It was Butch Jones' first year at Arkansas State, and he was special teams captain just a few weeks into the season. He wasn't starting on defense yet, but that kind of tells you the leader that he is. And he was all in from the start. And when he came back to campus last year, after he had graduated the year before and Butch Jones brought him in to be part of the staff, instantly the connection within the team was better. And why was that? It was because Justin Parks is so passionate about Arkansas State and Arkansas State football that he brought that to the rest of the team. And he is the perfect person to be leading one of these podcasts. So I'm really excited about that. But there's so many examples over the years of former players that are so passionate still about this program, and they'll do anything to help it out. You go way back to the 70s, and somebody like Robert Speer, who's around this program all the time and knows Arkansas State football as well as anybody, fast forward to that period we were talking about earlier from 2011 to 2019. That team still has a text group going. It's constantly going, and it talks about their days at Arkansas State. And a lot of it is focusing on what they can do to help the program now. And we're talking about guys like Philip Butterfield and Ryan Applin and Demario Davis, guys that care so much still, Taylor Stockamer, guys that just bleed scarlet and black and will do anything to help out this university, help out the football program. And yeah, we're going to talk to those guys about why that passion is so deep. Jacob Baer is a guy that is recently graduated that was a big part of this program. Jacob still, those are a couple of centers that I just named that just love Arkansas State and this program and want to help Coach Jones any way they possibly can. So, yeah, that's what we want to do. We want people through this platform to be able to hear from those people that love Arkansas State, hear why they love Arkansas State, why they they want to help this program still go to another level. And you're right, it's a different day with NIL and the transfer portal. You're having to get to know a lot of new players more than you had to in the past, but that doesn't mean when they come in, these players aren't completely all in and bought into what Coach Jones wants to do with this program. So I think it's

Former Players And New Era Challenges

SPEAKER_01 13:40

important to hear from those people in the past, but also hear from the people now and what their passion is all about when it surrounds Arkansas State football.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah. Well, Matt, I want to kind of give you a second, any final remarks you want to make. We're going to kind of wrap it up here for our little uh pilot recording that we're doing. So anything that you want to share with people about, you know, maybe I know you mentioned some people you're going to be talking to, but you know, what they can look forward to is we get recordings going here very shortly, um, and content actually rolling out to the public very shortly after that. So um anything you want to kind of leave the listener as we as we leave today?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Well, I'm looking forward to candid conversations, in-depth conversations. And that's one thing about this particular platform is that you can have those in-depth conversations. We can tell stories. It's not trying to cram something into a five or 10-minute interview. We can talk about those great times, the things that are happening right now and the things that happened back then that made Arkansas State and Arkansas State football so great and why it is such a great product. And I look forward every week to being able to talk to those people that love this program and that uh that still just have that burning desire to do anything they can to help out Arkansas State football. So hopefully we can do that. I think we can certainly do it. I'm excited about it, and hopefully uh uh we can talk to a whole lot of people in the coming weeks, months, and uh hopefully even beyond that.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, absolutely. And as we continue to grow and move it forward, jumping into other sports and talking about all these other, you know, legacy things that we have from, you know, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, everything else. Um, you know, we're talking about just a singular sport inside this department right now where it can go much further beyond. And they all have their own stories of success and what happenings in the what's happening in the community and their own game day experiences that we can dive in down the road.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Arkansas State athletics just across the board is a in as good of a spot it's as it's ever been. And I think that there's a lot of stories to tell within the athletic department.

Expanding To More Sports

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Hopefully, uh we're able to tell as many as we possibly can. But yeah, you look at men's basketball, three straight, 20 win seasons. That's a really, really big deal. Only the second time that's happened in program history. So we can talk about that as we're sitting down recording this. The women's basketball program has already matched a single season program record for wins. Baseball is having as good of a season as they've had in a really long time, and there's more people coming out to games than ever before. And you can just keep it going. Men's golf is in a really, really good spot. Uh, track and field has always been fantastic under Coach Patchell. So there's a lot of great stories to tell, and we look forward to telling them right here on Saturdays in Jonesboro.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah, I love it. Well, Matt, thank you so much. Uh, we'll go ahead and cut the recording there today. Um, and we're gonna sit here and chat for a little bit, just I do want to get the remainder of this on camera, but um, I appreciate you coming by and taking the time, man.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

This has been fun. Absolutely.