Memories of 1986 heavy in rematch

JONESBORO -- Tim Keane doesn't hesitate to laugh when one of the most disappointing nights of his coaching career is brought up.

In the annals of Arkansas State football history, the night of Dec. 20, 1986, is remembered as the time ASU came within a game of winning an NCAA Division I-AA national championship.

Keane's memory is a bit more detailed.

"Yeah," he said during a recent phone conversation from Memphis, where he's now retired. "I remember the a**-whooping we got."

Keane, an ASU quarterback in the 1960s, spent almost two decades as an ASU assistant coach, including all 11 seasons under Coach Larry Lacewell, who won a program-best 69 games in 1979-1989 and reached the I-AA playoffs four times. Yet, two games won't escape Keane's mind: a loss to Division II Pittsburg State in 1989 and the 48-21 loss to Georgia Southern played in Tacoma, Wash., with the national championship on the line.

"I try to get rid of them," he said. "But it never leaves."

The players and coaches who took part in that game are long gone from each program, but the paths of the two will intersect for the first time since at 7 p.m. today at Centennial Bank Stadium in a Sun Belt Conference game televised on ESPN2.

Since Georgia Southern quarterback Tracy Ham ran wild on Keane's defense for 486 total yards, the two programs have gone in separate directions.

Georgia Southern went on to win four more I-AA (now known as Football Championship Subdivision) national titles before moving to the Football Bowl Subdivision and the Sun Belt in 2014. ASU made the move earlier and struggled to gain traction. It posted just one winning record in its first 13 seasons and just two before 2011, when it began a string of five consecutive bowl appearances and four Sun Belt titles in five seasons.

The teams are the holders of the past two Sun Belt titles, and even though ASU enters tonight's game winless, both programs' standards are among the conference's best.

ASU Coach Blake Anderson, hired in 2014, has no connection to the only previous meeting between the two teams, but he said he understands the history.

"For us, it's just a really, really, healthy respect of the tradition there and the type of ball they play," he said. "Even though we didn't play them the last two years, we've been watching. I think they've been doing the same. Heck, our fan bases go back and forth and we haven't played each other yet."

Those who played in the game will no doubt be thinking tonight of the game played 30 years ago in a dome in which local organizers had to bring in high school bands and students to fill the seats.

ASU brought a 12-1-1 record into the game and the memory of a 1985 quarterfinal loss to Nevada played through a second-half snowstorm. In 1986, most players were back to run Lacewell's option offense and a 4-3 defense called by Keane. The Indians started the year by beating Southern Illinois, Northwestern (La.) State and Memphis by at least two touchdowns, then tied at Ole Miss.

Their only loss came at Mississippi State, before going undefeated in the Southland Conference and then running through the I-AA playoffs with blowouts of Sam Houston State 48-7, Rich Gannon-led Delaware 55-14 and Eastern Kentucky 24-10.

"We might not have been the biggest, strongest or fastest all the time," ASU all-American offensive lineman Randy Barnhill said, "but we were good at what we did."

The problem was, Georgia Southern played a similar scheme -- and they did it better on that night.

Ham, who was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams and spent 13 seasons in the CFL, ran for 180 yards, passed for 306 and put up more points on an ASU defense than any other team that season while running Georgia Southern's triple option.

"You can't tackle smoke," Lacewell told reporters after the game.

ASU's no-huddle Wishbone offense did what it could, even with fullback Rickey Jemison limited by a sprained knee, by gaining 343 yards. But it wasn't enough to keep up with Ham, now an associate athletic director at Georgia Southern.

"I told y'all it was pretty good offense," David Mitchell, ASU's running backs coach that season, remembers Lacewell saying after the game.

Mitchell, now retired and living in North Little Rock, said that night caused Lacewell to open up ASU's Wishbone offense a bit. It helped the Indians get back to the playoffs in 1987 before consecutive 5-6 seasons led to Lacewell's resignation in 1990, the same year Georgia Southern won its fourth national title.

ASU moved to the FBS in 1992, the Sun Belt in 2001 and entered this season among the league favorite along with Georgia Southern, which joined in 2014. The teams didn't play each other the past two years, while Georgia Southern went unbeaten and won the Sun Belt in 2014, and ASU did so last year.

"I think they knew we've been good enough in the league, that we're going to be part of the conversation every year, and we knew when they came in they'd be part of it as well," Anderson said.

Keane will be in Jonesboro to watch the long-awaited rematch tonight, and he's got one warning that stems from what's bothered him for 30 years.

"They better understand how the option game works," Keane said of the offense Georgia Southern still uses. "Because if you don't know what you're doing, if you line up the wrong way, you're in for a long night."

Sports on 10/05/2016