JONESBORO -- Resetting after each play is something Arkansas State understands well. It's something Coach Butch Jones has tried to instill in his players with a "snap and clear" mentality.
But how do the Red Wolves reset after last week's 52-3 loss at Washington in which they were never able to get into the game? That's what they have to figure out before heading back out on the road later this week.
"I told our team, 'We can't leave our season in Washington,' " Jones said during his Tuesday news conference. "We're all disappointed in our performance for where we want to take this program. We expect to play better against those types of opponents, but you have to learn from it. You can't waste a failure."
ASU didn't arrive back in Jonesboro until close to 3 a.m. Sunday, heading straight from Husky Stadium to the airport, flying to Memphis and then busing an hour-plus back to campus.
There was plenty of time to stew things over on the trip home.
"I wouldn't say we were down, but obviously we knew what happened out there. We know why we lost," defensive end Kivon Bennett said, adding that he thought the Red Wolves beat themselves. "I didn't go to sleep on the plane because I was sitting there running over everything that just happened in the game.
"It's a tough loss, but we can't let that loss define our season."
If it's not going to define ASU's season, perhaps it's a performance that can help the Red Wolves reset.
Although Washington was unranked following two losses to open its season, the Huskies are still a Pac-12 team with a legitimate shot at a conference title. And ASU knew its schedule was front-loaded -- the Red Wolves' five toughest games per ESPN's current SP+ rankings come in this six-game stretch with Washington (19), Coastal Carolina (35), Louisiana-Lafayette (52), Memphis (61) and Tulsa (81).
There isn't time to dwell on consecutive defeats, and once ASU watches film on Monday, it puts the previous game to bed. That means focusing on the week of practice ahead, a place where running back Lincoln Pare said he believes his team can bring even more juice.
"One thing Coach Jones made an emphasis on this week is bringing our energy from the weight room onto the field," he said. "We're so loud in the weight room ... we need to bring that energy onto the field, and I think if we do that, it'll help us a lot."
Jones said he wants to see his team celebrating big plays. But they were few and far between against the Huskies.
Given a nonconference schedule that the Red Wolves' coach described Tuesday as "arguably the toughest ... in the Sun Belt Conference, and probably the Group of Five" a win against the Golden Hurricane would almost certainly shift ASU's momentum .
"A lot of the guys that are here have to figure out that this is where football teams are made," Bennett said. "After you take a loss like that and you start your season 1-2, what are you going to do? ... We've shown flashes of being locked in, so instead of flashes, we need to be all game."