MONROE, La. -- Tres Houston found out just before the team bus left Jonesboro on Friday bound for northeast Louisiana that he wouldn't be starting the game on the field with his teammates.
A targeting foul that wasn't called during a game two weeks ago led to the senior receiver being held out for Saturday's first quarter. Instead of playing, Houston stood on the sideline without his helmet, trying to ignite energy into his teammates while they slogged their way through a sloppy first quarter.
"I can't let my situation affect the team," Houston said.
Houston didn't waste time making an impact.
He caught three touchdown passes in the second quarter to help ASU out of its funk and Fredi Knighten tied a school record with five touchdown passes as ASU ran away from Louisiana-Monroe for a 59-21 victory at Malone Stadium.
Afterward, it was announced that Louisiana-Monroe had fired Coach Todd Berry, effectively immediately. Berry's six-year tenure included a 34-31 overtime victory over Arkansas in Little Rock in 2012, one of the Warhawks' biggest victories.
But Berry (28-43 overall, 1-9 in 2015) couldn't survive a game in which ASU churned out 448 yards and scored the final 38 points in front of an announced crowd of 9,063 but one ASU Coach Blake Anderson said had more Red Wolves fans than fans of the Warhawks.
The Red Wolves romped despite having their running game held to 148 yards by a defense intent on doing so. But Knighten passed for a season-high 300 yards and threw touchdown passes to three different receivers as the Red Wolves piled up the third-highest point total against a Sun Belt team.
"The definition of balance is being able to do what they make you do to win, and they were going to make us throw it," ASU Coach Blake Anderson said. "We still found a way to win a game and score points really uncharacteristic of what we're used to doing, and that's a sign of a mature football team."
Anderson said all week that he was concerned with how his team would start in a half-empty stadium and said he didn't feel like his team really snapped out of its funk until early in the second half, after ASU closed the first half on three consecutive touchdown drives to go up 35-21. Houston helped the Red Wolves keep up until then.
On the second series of the second quarter, Knighten found Houston on a 27-yard fade pass to make it 14-0. Later, Houston caught a 50-yard pass from Knighten to make it 21-14, and then he caught a 17-yard pass just before halftime to make it 35-21.
Those were the only three passes Houston caught, but they covered 94 yards and all made it to the end zone. Anderson said Houston "did a great job" responding to the suspension, which Anderson said was levied by the school for a targeting foul that was not called in an Oct. 31 victory over Georgia State.
"The conference would either hold him out for a half, or we could choose to hold him out for a quarter. That's what we did," Anderson said.
It helped Knighten compile one of his best games. He said ASU recognized early that Louisiana-Monroe's plan was to stop the run, so he started unleashing deep passes to try and draw them away from the line.
ASU's running game never really got going, but it didn't need to. Dijon Paschal caught two passes, one that covered 65 yards that set up a 1-yard Johnston White touchdown run and the other was a 35-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter that made it 52-21. Knigthen also connected with Chris Murray on a 53-yard touchdown in the second quarter.
"Whatever we need to do, I feel like we can do it," Knighten said. "When we're clicking on all cylinders, there's not a person in the league who can stop us."
Louisiana-Monroe gained 233 yards in the first half, even after starting quarterback Garrett Smith exited with an injury. A big chunk of those yards came from Ben Luckett's 85-yard run down the left hash that tied the game at 21-21 in the second quarter.
Safety Chris Humes missed a tackle on the play, but said "we came back and got it corrected."
Did they ever. The Warhawks ran 35 plays after Luckett's run, and were held to 7 yards and committed 4 turnovers.
"We just had to turn it on," Humes said. "We can't let enthusiasm or lack of effort stand in our way of a Sun Belt championship."
Sports on 11/15/2015