The Red Wolves aren't built to punish anybody on the ground right now, though. Running back D. Spencer has been out since August with a knee injury that's projected to end his season, and the offense has been inconsistent without him. Arkansas State scored 7 at TCU, then put up 49 in a home loss to South Alabama, and won 17-14 over Kennesaw State. Nobody has found a steady identity yet.
Both teams played Kennesaw State, and that comparison helps Georgia State. The Panthers went on the road and beat the Owls 31-17. Arkansas State needed every point to win 17-14 at home. The rest of the schedules point the same way: Georgia State's 2 losses came to UCF and an unbeaten JMU team, while Arkansas State has dropped 1-score games to Louisiana and South Alabama, which are the kind of games a 3-4 team has to start winning.
Arkansas State's defense is the wild card. It gave up 56 to South Alabama, then held Southern Miss to 13 on the road 9 days later. If that second version shows up in Jonesboro against a Georgia State passing game that just managed 134 yards, this is a grind. If the South Alabama version shows up, Georgia State's offense from early October gets back on track fast.
Weather won't be an excuse for either side: the forecast calls for 74 degrees, cloudy, 4 mph wind and no rain. It comes down to whether Georgia State's offense looks like the one that hung 42 on Old Dominion or the one that stalled in Harrisonburg. For Arkansas State, it's whether the Southern Miss defense was a turning point or a one-off.