ASU receiver finally catches on

Arkansas State wide receiver Tres Houston, making a one-handed catch for a touchdown that gave the Red Wolves a 7-3 lead over Missouri, doesn’t think it was his best catch of the game.
Arkansas State wide receiver Tres Houston, making a one-handed catch for a touchdown that gave the Red Wolves a 7-3 lead over Missouri, doesn’t think it was his best catch of the game.

JONESBORO -- Tres Houston spent most of Sunday and Monday trying to decide which catch from last week's loss to Missouri he liked better.

Was it the one-handed grab in the corner of the end zone that gave ASU a 7-3 lead over the Tigers? Or the one just before halftime when he corralled a pass headed out of bounds for a touchdown after keeping his toes just inside the out-of-bounds line?

UP NEXT

ARKANSAS STATE VS. MISSOURI STATE

WHEN 6 p.m. Saturday

WHERE Centennial Bank Stadium, Jonesboro

RECORDS Arkansas State 0-2; Missouri State 1-1

SERIES ASU leads 2-1

RADIO KASR-FM, 92.7, in Little Rock/Conway; KFIN-FM, 107.9, in Jonesboro

INTERNET ESPN3.com

"I liked the second one," Houston said after Wednesday's practice, referring to the catch that gave ASU a 17-10 lead going into halftime. "The first one was pretty routine. One-handed catches start to come easy after you practice trying to catch the ball in awkward positions."

Wide receivers coach Luke Paschall wasn't surprised by either.

"He's one of those guys that has unbelievable ball skills," Paschall said of Houston, who has 5 catches for 77 yards through 2 games this season.

Flash back a few years and there were plenty of people in Jonesboro who weren't sure if Houston would ever become a consistent threat on the field.

Houston is in his fourth season at ASU and his sixth football season since leaving high school in College Park, Ga., near Atlanta, but he's coming off the first season in which he was a consistent threat on an FBS-level roster. Houston led ASU with 53 catches for 686 yards and 4 touchdowns last season, his best season since leaving high school in 2010.

Since then, Todd Graham thought Houston could make an impact on a college football team. So did Gus Malzahn. Both of those coaches are leading schools in major conferences now -- Graham at Arizona State and Malzahn at Auburn -- after willingly taking Houston into their programs.

Houston left Tulsa, where Graham was coaching in 2010, before even taking a class. He took a year off from football, then enrolled at Northeast Mississippi Community College in 2011. He was a part of the only signing class unveiled by Malzahn at ASU in 2012, but was suspended for the season before a game was played for a violation of unspecified team rules.

Houston caught eight passes for 44 yards in 2013 under Coach Bryan Harsin, but it took Blake Anderson, offensive coordinator Walt Bell and Paschall to really get what others saw out of Houston.

"They trust me," Houston said. "The other coaching staffs probably didn't trust me as much because I had certain situations that I was going through. This staff believed in me. They see what I can do and they push me to the limit, and I appreciate them for giving me the opportunity."

Initial reports gathered by Anderson and his staff weren't in Houston's favor.

"They told us to run him off," Paschall said. "Not the previous staff, but people that were around told us to run him off. They told us he doesn't listen, he's got a bad attitude, that he doesn't really work hard."

Anderson didn't take their advice. Instead, he stood up in front of his new team and told them about their new chance.

"I wanted guys to be able to be who they wanted to be," Anderson said. "I think Tres is one of those guys who has taken advantage of that."

Now the only issues Houston has with coaches is at practice when they want more out of him. Anderson said he got into it with Houston after last Thursday's practice, but that Houston has a relationship with coaches that allows him to snap back at them every once in awhile.

"I appreciate it, because without that I wouldn't be where I am today," Houston said. "You've got to understand that he's only telling you what he sees and that he knows how to get the best out of you. And that's the method of getting the best out of me.

"As you can see from results on Saturday, it paid off."

Houston said he appreciates that Anderson and his staff brought with them an opportunity to reroute what had been a fledgling career.

"We told him, 'You can paint your own picture,' " Paschall said. "You can be Picasso or you can paint stick figures, and he's chosen -- for the most part, 99 percent of the time -- to be Picasso."

Sports on 09/17/2015

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