Arkansas State needs just one more win to reach college football bowl eligibility. It played in front of a pathetic crowd against Southern Miss on Saturday.
Head coach Butch Jones did not understand why the Red Wolves’ fanbase failed to show up.
Apparently nobody told him about deer season. A large number of college football programs across the southeast struggle to fill the stands during various hunting seasons if their team is not winning.
It’s the first Saturday of modern gun deer season.
There are only so many weeks of the year where certain animals are “in season” for hunting. Local Game and Fish Commissions set limits on when they can be hunted, how they can be hunted and how many can be hunted.
For example, Saturday marked the first weekend of “modern gun” season for deer in Arkansas. What that means is hunters are allowed to use rifles and/or shotguns (depending on the zone) to kill deer. They may bag five deer total, with no more than two antlered bucks. The window is only open from Nov. 8-30.
Other deer-hunting windows include bow and arrow, and “alternative firearms” for non-semi-automatic rifles that fire straight-wall centerfire cartridges. Those windows are different.
Thus, avid outdoorsmen chomp at the bit for this first day of modern gun season. You can’t spend all day in a blind if you don’t start in the morning!
Arkansas State’s college football crowd was tiny.
As a result of modern gun season and a 5-3 record, the Red Wolves did not come anywhere close to filling the stands at Centennial Bank Stadium on Saturday. It holds a maximum capacity of 30,386.
I don’t think there was more than 10,000 at kickoff, which confused head coach Butch Jones.
However, Arkansas State is not the only school in the southeast with this issue. Various hunting seasons— whether that be deer, duck or otherwise — often have an impact on the amount of fans who show up to games. Just ask Lane Kiffin!
"There's always a game and I'd be like 'How come people aren't here?'… They did say this is the first week of squirrel hunting."
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 3, 2025
Lane Kiffin talks squirrel hunting season ⬇️🐿️ pic.twitter.com/LAUW8SdDpO
Modern gun season or not, the size of the crowd in Jonesboro for a conference on Saturday was pathetic. The Red Wolves are one win away from bowl eligibility. They could’ve used the home-field advantage!