JONESBORO -- Late Thursday night, in the wake of a sixth straight loss, a rather simple query was posed to Arkansas State Coach Butch Jones.
Given where his Red Wolves are, can there be moral victories?
Jones' response was equally straightforward.
"No, there are no moral victories in our program," he said. "There's progress, and I saw progress. ... But you play the game to win and we have to learn from these mistakes so we don't make the same mistakes [again].
"We call it picking up loose change in practice. All of a sudden, now we're not doing it in a game. Why not? It should be four to six, A to B, right to the ball -- it's a mentality, it's an effort. We're going to be different."
That's what seemed to be the most disheartening for ASU (1-6, 1-3 Sun Belt Conference) following its 28-27 loss to Louisiana-Lafayette. There were the long touchdowns. The Ragin' Cajuns broke off runs of 99 and 74 yards, finding the end zone with relative ease.
There were silly penalties. ASU had two drive-killing flags on offense and committed four offsides fouls, including one on Louisiana Lafayette's game-sealing drive that burned off the final 10:26.
The loss made for the worst seven-game start to an ASU season since 2000 when the Red Wolves finished 1-10 and didn't win until the season finale.
But ASU didn't trail by multiple touchdowns -- in fact, it had a late third-quarter lead. Nor did it give up 50-plus points, asking its offense to turn out an extraordinary performance to save the game.
While the Red Wolves may not have wanted to concede as much, they recognized the change.
"This last week was a big turning point in the season for us," running back Lincoln Pare said. "It was go big or go home. ... It's a lot of people on this team making a choice to come together because, well, we don't really have a choice but to come together."
The Ragin' Cajuns went nearly 20 minutes without scoring as ASU forced two punts and came up with a critical goal-line stand on Louisiana-Lafayette's first three series. The Red Wolves shut out an opponent for two entire quarters -- something that had happened just once all season entering the night.
Before the Cajuns' go-ahead touchdown just prior to halftime -- depriving ASU of its first halftime lead of 2021 -- ULL had 101 yards on 23 plays (excluding the 99-yard touchdown).
It's now on the Red Wolves to see if they can put that type of defensive showing together for a full 60 minutes. Even in a good half-hour's work, there were too many errors.
"It's the small details that can really help and communication, too," defensive end Joe Ozougwu said. "It's the same stuff that's been happening all season, so we really have to correct it."
With Jones, it's rare for a media availability to go without the ASU coach at least once mentioning the phrase "work in progress."
On Thursday night, the Red Wolves demonstrated quite a bit of progress, making losing such a nail-biter more bitter.
"I don't think it's ever easy to lose. I don't think it should be," quarterback Layne Hatcher said. "If it is, you've got a lot of stuff wrong with you. ... I just want to win games."