JONESBORO -- Giant cubes of speakers sat along an end zone's edge of Arkansas State University's outdoor parallel practice fields where a man with a smart phone and an auxiliary cable controlled the mood and vigor of any specific minute of ASU's Wednesday evening practice.
In this instance, "Buy U A Drank" by famed hip-hop artist T-Pain buoyed this practice and gave it life.
Many of the players danced and loudly bellowed the lyrics, while the man tethered to the phone of control often cut the tunes short to jerk to another song. More dancing followed.
Music fueled energy as ASU prepared for Saturday's 2:30 p.m. Central meeting against No. 1 Alabama in the Tide's home opener at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
"We've got noise every day," ASU Coach Blake Anderson said.
ASU's up-tempo offense is expected to remain against the Tide's daunting defense and before a hectic atmosphere.
Should they need, the Red Wolves are able to rifle in plays with words or in silence as ways to offset the Bryant-Denny crowd.
"We've got the ability to go on silent cadence or verbal cadence. It's loud and obnoxious and crazy at practice every day for a reason so days like this don't really matter," Anderson said. "We're not playing the stadium. We're playing the guys on the field. We've got to try to keep the people in the stands from being a factor, and that's kind of why we practice the way we do every day."
Senior quarterback Justice Hansen doesn't expect the offense to be shook by noise or by the Tide.
"It's not something we're worried about," Hansen said.
The Red Wolves ran 79 plays for an average of 8.6 yards per play in Saturday's 48-21 rout of Southeast Missouri State and did so impressively quickly. A number of ASU's school-record seven passing touchdowns were flicked swiftly, so offensives drives didn't require much time and big plays swallowed little clock.
ASU required 26:52 minutes of possession time to blitz SEMO with 48 points and cruise to its first season-opening victory since 2014. The Tide's defense, however, is much more addicted to control.
Alabama allowed Louisville possession for 28:51 minutes in Saturday's neutral-field blowout at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., basically splitting time of possession with the Cardinals. Louisville scored all 14 of its points in the second half of the Tide's 51-14 rout, a game settled early as Alabama entered halftime with a 28-0 lead.
The Red Wolves' speedy pace won't slow with the uncertainty of playing the Tide's strong defense.
"We'll try to make as uncomfortable as we possibly can," Anderson said. "Obviously as the game goes on, you hope that the pace of play helps us and minimizes some mismatches that are going to be tough to battle early. That's kind of always been the case. We'd like to be able to control the tempo. That's hard to do against somebody as good as they are."
"We run an up-tempo offense," Hansen said. "In each play, there are a lot of answers built in. We've got to trust that on Saturday."
Sports on 09/07/2018