Arkansas State Football

The long and winding college career of running back Michael Dyer took another turn on Sunday evening, as Arkansas State announced that the transfer from Auburn has been dismissed from the Red Wolves for violation of team rules.

Dyer's dismissal from Arkansas State likely stems from a March 10 traffic stop, when an officer pulled Dyer over for travelling at 96 miles per hour in a 70 miles-per-hour zone. During that stop, State Trooper Royce Denny discovered marijuana and a gun in Dyer's car, but let Dyer go with a $175 speeding ticket, according to ArkansasSports360.com.

During the conversation between Denney and Dyer, Denny is caught using some salty language towards Dyer: "Carrying a pistol around. Uncool. You’ve got a career ahead of you, but you’re being a total dumbass right now."

That's harsh, to say the least.

It's also accurate.

Dyer was on his second (or perhaps, third) chance as a college athlete, and he knew it. Despite that fact, he decided to speed at 24 mph over the speed limit with weed and gun in the car. That's not smart, and I have no problem with Denney pointing that out during the traffic stop.

If the trooper felt the need to explain that to him in the hopes that he changes, fine. Someone needed to.

I'm not fine with the fact that Dyer was let off with nary a mention of the marijuana or gun. Enabling a player to get away with things like this is exactly why some players never grow up. It's hypocritical.

Denney gave Dyer a stern talking to in the hopes of straightening him out, but his actions contradicted his entire argument. 

Arkansas State Police are conducting an internal investigation into the matter.

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By now, you've likely seen the news. Arkansas State running back Michael Dyer, the former Auburn star and MVP of the 2010 season's BCS National Championship Game, has been dismissed from the Red Wolves football team. Tom Fornelli over at CBS Sports reports the head coach, Gus Malzahn, had to dump the running back who followed him from Auburn to Jonesboro. 

According to Yahoo!, the police are looking into the traffic stop that ultimately sunk Dyer. While they have completed their investigation, how it affects his standing, legally, remains to be seen. That said, Malzahn has already pulled the trigger on the running back, and he is on to the next leg of his journey.

If now is when you want to get in your "I told you so" about Dyer being a bad egg, spare me. If you are more focused on saying you're "glad he's out" with respect to playing ball, I don't really care.

The fact of the matter is that now, more so than ever, I'm rooting for the kid to find his way. This is not an appeal for you to do the same. I get that you're just a fan who sees a spoiled, entitled athlete who deserves to know what it's like to be thrown away for good.

For me, he's a person. Football was, at the start, a way for him to come up in the world. He's made bad decisions and things have not worked out well for him. Now, he's on the outside looking in, again. 

And I'm rooting for him.

Perhaps it is because my parents, with 50-some odd years in teaching and administration, were never in the business of throwing kids away. Perhaps it is because football is more than just something I enjoy on fall Saturdays. Perhaps it is because I actually like the players and root for them.

Ultimately, in Michael Dyer, I see my old teammates. Guys who got to college and made mistakes, and it cost them dearly. I see Adarius Bowman, a guy who screwed up time and again and ultimately cost himself a shot at that better life. I see Puff Thomas, a guy who left UNC, and most of us never heard from him again.

I see my old teammates in guys like Michael Dyer, and I'm hoping that they find a way out. I'm hoping that they find a way to get their degree and finally put it all together.

In other words, I'm hoping this is not the end of the road for Michael Dyer. I'm hoping that this is the start of him putting things together. That this is the final straw that makes the kid understand he has to do right. I've got no issue with second chances, none at all. Better for him to end up at school somewhere than to be back home in Little Rock. 

I'm not asking you to agree. I know you don't care. I know, for you, this is good riddance.

But me? I'll be rooting for the kid to find a positive through all of this. 

Some people simply do not take advantage of a second chance. 

Running back Michael Dyer was suspended indefinitely from Auburn following last season after violating team rules, but he was given another opportunity when he followed offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn to Arkansas State.

Unfortunately, he did not take advantage of this chance as ESPN reports he was dismissed from the team for once again breaking team rules.

The problems stem from a traffic stop that took place in March. According to the Arkansas Times, Dyer was pulled over and received a $17 dollar ticket for going 26 mph over the speed limit. However, he should have received much more.

A video recording of the incident showed that the state trooper acknowledged the athlete had both marijuana and a gun in his possession. The officer then decided it best not to tell anyone to avoid any NCAA violations.

RedWolfReport.com states that the matter is still being investigated, but it is clear that Dyer was not completely following the law. As a result, a once promising football career is all but over.

Future athletes should take note of this situation and realize that talent alone will not get them too far in life if they make dumb decisions off the field.

Dyer's situation is very similar to former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett. Both players dazzled scouts as freshmen and helped lead their teams to national championships. Unfortunately, troubles with the law prematurely ended what should have been great collegiate careers.

Clarett is now long removed from football after many attempts to make the NFL.

Professional stars like Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress were able to return to the NFL after stints in jail, but not everyone will be able to continue a career after troubles with the law.

In this year's draft, cornerback Janoris Jenkins was a top-10 talent but slipped past the first round due to similar issues. His entire career will be held under a microscope as he tries to move past mistakes in college.

The message is that athletes must behave themselves in all aspects of their lives. School rules are not meant to be an inconvenience but to keep the athletes safe and out of trouble. If they choose not to follow them, no one is responsible for what happens but themselves.

If these young men can avoid mistakes off the field, people will only focus how good they are on it. This will make it much easier to start a successful career.

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Former Auburn standout Michael Dyer has reportedly been ruled ineligible for the 2012 college football season.

According to a report by the Associated Press (via RedWolfReport.com):

"The NCAA has denied former Auburn running back Michael Dyer's request to be immediately eligible to play this season at Arkansas State. Red Wolves coach Gus Malzahn disclosed the news Thursday."

This shocking news is devastating to Red Wolves fans who were hoping that the 2011 BCS National Championship Game MVP would rejuvenate their football program.

Dyer was an absolute monster during his first two seasons at Auburn, rushing for 1,093 yards and five touchdowns in 2010 in his true freshman year and then improved those impressive numbers to the tune of 1,242 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2011.

However, an undisclosed incident took place between the Tigers regular season game and their 2011 Chik-Fil-A bowl appearance that led to Dyer being indefinitely suspended and subsequently released on January 6th of this year.

Dyer, an Arkansas native, had reportedly applied for a waiver that would give him the right to immediately transfer and be eligible to play in his true junior year. The NCAA denied the request, and now the running back will have to sit for one season before he can join Arkansas State.

It’s unfortunate, but the NCAA often isn’t a fair institution. Hopefully Dyer can keep his fledgling career on track and get back on the field in 2013.

Keep it tuned to Bleacher Report for the latest news, information, opinions and analysis on Michael Dyer being denied immediate eligibility to play football at Arkansas State. 

Every day here at Your Best 11, we are counting down to the start of the regular season with our top 150 players for the 2012 season.

No. 87: Ryan Aplin, No. 16, Arkansas State, Quarterback

Strengths

No offense to the dynamic TY Hilton of a season ago, but Ryan Aplin was the best player the Sun Belt has seen in quite some time.

The rising senior has quite the arm, throwing for over 3,500 yards, and he has enough wiggle to lead the Red Wolves in rushing as well. He really is a treat to watch on the screen, as he can evade the rush and is capable of getting his passes off under tremendous duress. The rising senior is also pretty slippery when he gets into the open field. He can break tackles, but he's at his best weaving through defenders and picking up that extra few yards for his team.

Weaknesses

For all of his skills, decision-making is the biggest downfall of Ryan Aplin. The senior has to get better at protecting the football; his 19:16 touchdown-to-interception ratio is the most unimpressive portion of his game.

With a new system coming in from first-year head coach Gus Malzahn, Aplin's choices will be paramount, as he looks to run and throw his team to their second straight Sun Belt championship.

2012 Predictions

Gus Malzahn and Hugh Freeze are not terribly different as far as offensive systems go; that is a positive for Aplin. However, losing Derek Lawson and Dwayne Frampton will be a major blow, especially with transfer running back Michael Dyer unlikely to be cleared for action in 2012.

Aplin will have to improve upon his decision-making, but Gus Malzahn is going to further push the tempo and help create mismatches for the senior to take advantage of in both the run and the pass game. Look for Aplin to not only be the first-team All-Sun Belt quarterback, but to repeat as the conference's Player of the Year. 

Photo courtesy The Sports Seer.

Kelcie McCray is a good-sized, sure-tackling strong safety from Arkansas State.  At his pro day, he measured 6’1-3/4" and 202 pounds and ran an official 4.54 40-yard dash.

He can eat up space with his feet, especially at the safety position.  McCray is a solid player with very good coverage skills.

I talked with him after his pro day about his time at college.  We also talked about his future, looking toward the NFL.  He was invited to the combine, so I asked what the combine process was like.

“It was fun,'' he said. "It was a different experience getting to go up against other guys from different schools for the first time in a long time.  It was definitely a good experience.''

Like some of the others that we have talked to, he didn’t like the emphasis on medical exams at the combine. “The most frustrating part was in the things like that," he said. It reached a point where he just wanted to go show them what he could do.

I asked him what his favorite moment was as a college football player.  “This past season, we went 10-2 in the regular season, but we lost the bowl game.  It was the best season in Arkansas State history.  We had a lot of fan support and we did a lot of great things.”

I asked if there was an aspect of his game that he has been told needs to be worked on. He said that "being a more physical tackler at the point of contact” was something a few teams had mentioned. 

While he acknowledged that he needs to tackle better, perhaps look at technique, he says that he is a sure tackler and that he didn’t miss a lot of tackles. He played strong safety at Arkansas State.

I asked what he felt he could offer an NFL team.  “My experience, my athleticism, my knowledge of the game and my ability to make plays on the ball,” he said.

He said that being a playmaker in the secondary “is very valuable to any team, you know. Turnovers and interceptions are game-changers.”

We talked about his love for the game and how he watches football to learn things and pick up traits from the best.  He said he watches a lot of Ed Reed because Reed is his football role model. “I try to watch the things he does and take the little pieces and incorporate them into my game.” 

At 6’2”, McCray is tall and rangy.  I asked if he considers his size an advantage. “Definitely...not only with receivers, but my size allows me to match up against tight ends.''

I asked him what he would want the fans of the team that drafts him to know.  He told me “they are definitely getting a guy that's going to work, work his butt off, and that wants to win. I'm going go out every practice and work the hardest, just do whatever I'm asked; do whatever's asked of me.”

He said that there won’t be any reason to worry about off-the-filed issues with him.  .

McCray is a good football player, and a player who is going to surprise some people.  His ability to cover from the back end, especially in a league that wants to throw the ball at every opportunity, is going to help him.

He has been productive everywhere he has been. There is nothing preventing McCray from having success in the NFL.

Scott Bischoff is a Contributor for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand or from official interview materials.

Hugh Freeze recently left Arkansas State after one season for the supposed greener pastures and fatter pocket books of Oxford, Mississippi.  While the departure of a head coach is usually followed by a period of recovery and rebuilding, this will not be the case in Jonesboro. 

What may be one of the strangest coaching "trades" in college football turned out to be one of the luckiest moments in the history of Arkansas State Athletics, and perhaps the university itself.  

The SEC, and Ole Miss specifically, gained a heck of a football coach in Hugh Freeze, who replaces the troubled Houston Nutt as head of the Rebels.  This left the Sun Belt Champion Red Wolves without a head football coach.  

What was originally an unforeseen problem ended up becoming one of the biggest surprises of the 2011-12 coaching carousel when Auburn's national championship-winning offensive genius, Gus Malzahn, accepted a position back home in The Natural State.  

The decision to accept a position that had paid Hugh Freeze around $152,000, which is even less than half of the Sun Belt average, was not totally driven by monetary reasons it seems.

It was no secret that Malzahn wanted to someday return closer to home, where he had once run a highly successful high school program, and the beneficiary of those desires is Arkansas State.

Coach Malzahn steps into an ideal situation in Jonesboro.  Hugh Freeze walked into a program as offensive coordinator in 2010 that was nothing to brag about.  Arkansas State had played second fiddle to the Razorbacks on the opposite side of the state for...well, forever.  Freeze made an instant impact, and in 2011 was given the head job.  

The Red Wolves won the Sun Belt, got a bowl bid and gained a ton of national attention for their program.  Enough attention to make Hugh Freeze a household name and a popular head coaching candidate.  When his chance came to make ten times the paycheck, he took it.

Now Arkansas State has one of the premier offensive play-callers in all of college football, and he brings with him a running back in Michael Dyer, who, like his coach, is coming home.  

The Red Wolves will dominate the Sun Belt, and they will do it immediately.  State has a solid roster left behind by coach Freeze, and with Gus Malzahn in charge they will shine.  

Look for big things out of Jonesboro in 2012 and beyond.   

As if Auburn needed any more bad news this season. Well, they got it anyway.

Auburn was in rebuilding mode this season and finished the year with an 8-5 record. They were absolutely unwatchable on both sides of the ball and finished in the 70s in points scored and points allowed. Sure, every game they lost came at the hands of a ranked opponent, but every game they won was sloppy and unconvincing. 

They already lost offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn who went ahead and left for his first head coaching job at Arkansas State. The Red Wolves were also able to land a top quality running back in Michael Dyer, as the Tigers released him last week.

If you're an Arkansas State team, you have to be pinching yourself right now. These type of things don't happen to little teams in the Sun Belt Conference. Not only did you land one of the brightest offensive minds for a head coach, but you got a running back who's rushed for over 1,000 yards his first two seasons.

The Red Wolves will win a lot of games next season.

Malzahn is an offensive genius who is known for his work on that side of the ball. He knows how to put his players in the best position to succeed and will get the most out of those results. He's now taking over a Arkansas State team that went 10-2 this year. They were first in the Sun Belt in points scored, passing offense and total offense.

The only thing they were second in was rushing offense, and that's where Dyer comes in.

Dyer was a top running back coming out of high school and was fantastic his first two years at Auburn. Often overshadowed his freshmen year by Cam Newton, he still rushed for 1,093 yards, averaged six yards a carry and rushed for 143 yards in the national championship victory. If he was able to put up these numbers against SEC defenses, the Sun Belt should be a cakewalk. 

Arkansas State also returns their starting quarterback and three of their four top wide receivers. In a conference where more than half had losing records this season, Malzahn doesn't need much to succeed.

The college football season may have just ended, but you can already pencil in Arkansas State as Sun Belt Champions for next year.

Randy Chambers is a B/R Featured Columnist that covers College Football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or Randy.Chambers7@yahoo.com

Less than a week after he was granted his release from Auburn University, running back Michael Dyer is poised to transfer to Arkansas State.

According to a report from the Associated Press, a person with knowledge of the situation claims Dyer will transfer to Arkansas State in the near future, where he will join up with former Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.

Last Thursday, The Birmingham News reported that Dyer had been granted a conditional release that would allow him to transfer to a limited number of schools. Arkansas State was believed to be on the list.

Rumors of Dyer's transfer have been circulating for several days at this point. Last Wednesday, NationalFootballAuthority.com claimed Dyer had already filed paperwork with Arkansas State with plans to request a medical hardship that would allow him to play in 2012.

This ran contrary to what Richard Davenport of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had to say on Dec. 29:

In the middle of December, Auburn head coach Gene Chizik suspended Dyer for undisclosed reasons, and he did not play in the Chick-fil-A Bowl against Virginia.

Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News noted that only Dyer's stats were featured in Auburn's media guide for the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and he wasn't featured at all in the team's video highlight reel.

And Dyer would have been featured. He rushed for over 1,200 yards during the regular season. He also boasts the distinction of having been the Offensive Player of the Game in Auburn's win over Oregon in last year's BCS National Championship Game.

Dyer is also the only running back in Auburn history to rush for 1,000 yards in each of his first two seasons.

Right around the time Dyer was suspended by Chizik, Malzahn was stepping down from his post as Auburn's OC, a position he'd had since 2009. 

The Arkansas State Red Wolves have had a breakout season, compiling a record of 10-2 and winning the Sun Belt Conference. First-year head coach Hugh Freeze did an absolutely incredible job of taking a program with little history of success and turning them into conference champions with double-digit wins.

Since transitioning to the FBS level from Division I-AA about two decades ago, the Red Wolves had never managed more than six wins in a season, and they had only managed that feat a couple times.  This year's Arkansas State team shattered the futility surrounding the programing, reaching heights monumental for a team with little history of success.

The GoDaddy.com Bowl on Sunday presents the Red Wolves with a shot at truly changing the program into a successful one, and shaping a future far more successful than Arkansas State football's past.

Coach Freeze is gone, leaving to coach his home-state team of Ole Miss after impressing the nation with the Red Wolves' turnaround this season. Now is the chance for the Red Wolves to prove that they weren't just a one-and-done product of a terrific coach.

The Red Wolves won't have Coach Freeze when they face off against Northern Illinois this Sunday.  Instead, they will be led by interim coach David Gunn. Winning without Freeze would prove to recruits, fans and the nation as a whole that the program is here to stay.

Freeze's long-term replacement will be highly touted Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, who has plenty of name recognition and who will most likely be able to put together some pretty good recruiting classes based on that recognition. Winning the bowl would give a jump start to Malzahn's tenure, as Malzahn chose to retain Gunn on his staff for next season, so success would carry over to next year.

There's also the fact that Arkansas State has never won a bowl game at the FBS level. The first bowl win is always monumental, as evidenced by the national frenzy that followed fellow Sun Belt team Louisiana-Lafayette's first-ever bowl victory last month.

A victory in the GoDaddy.com bowl would also give Arkansas State an outside shot at becoming the first-ever Sun Belt team to reach the top 25 in the polls. It's hard to snub a team that has 11 victories an a bowl win, after all.

The GoDaddy.com Bowl may not capture national attention as much as some of the higher-profile bowls on the days surrounding it, but it carries a world of significance for the Arkansas State Red Wolves.