Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

New Arkansas State football coach Gus Malzahn and returning senior quarterback Ryan Aplin made the media rounds in Little Rock on Tuesday, ostensibly to promote Saturday's Red-Black Game in Jonesboro but to also talk about the overall program now that it's under Malzahn's direction. Accompanying them was a videographer, Nathan Brooks.

ASU is taking fans inside the Malzahn program through a YouTube-based video series entitled "Red Wolves Revival."

The first video, titled "Dawning of the Gus Malzahn Era," went up Tuesday, covering the announcement of Malzahn's hiring after three years as Auburn's offensive coordinator and including interviews with the coach, players and department staff, along with practice footage.

The series is planned to run through Aug. 29, with a new video uploaded each Wednesday, as the Red Wolves prepare for the 2012 season opener at Oregon. Viewers will see what goes into a college team's planning for its on-the-field efforts as well as the off-the-field building of Malzahn's program.

Auburn used this YouTube approach to marketing the team to its fans last year, and several other college programs have used the ease and accessibility of YouTube to broadcast an inside look at their operations.

KEEPING IN TOUCH: Malzahn says he has stayed in contact with Auburn quarterback Keihl Frazier since Malzahn left Auburn following the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Dec. 31. "I stay in touch with all my former players," Malzahn said Tuesday while in Little Rock.

Frazier, the Gatorade Player of the Year in Arkansas in 2010 and a 5-star recruit out of Shiloh Christian in Springdale, is in line to start at quarterback this fall after backing up regular Barrett Trotter. Trotter left the Auburn program, and Frazier and Clint Mosley are getting the most work at quarterback for the Tigers during their spring drills. The biggest change, as Frazier noted in a recent report, is that the Tigers quarterbacks will be operating under center most of the time under new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler.

"He'll do fine," Malzahn said of Frazier. "He's a great quarterback and he'll do well in any system."

RUNNING DOWNHILL: Ryan Aplin, the returning Sun Belt All-Conference first-team quarterback who led the Red Wolves to an 8-0 mark in the league, said that one of the biggest differences in the style of offense from last year's head coach, Hugh Freeze, to Malzahn is the emphasis on "a downhill running game." Under Freeze, Aplin said, the running attack was zone oriented. The downhill style "opens up more of the passing game."

This spring, ASU has been working Frankie Jackson and Sirgregory Thornton at the running back spots. Auburn transfer Michael Dyer won't be eligible for the fall unless Dyer and the school pursue a waiver from the NCAA to gain immediate eligibility, and Malzahn has said that so far ASU hasn't done that.

But Dyer, who was All-SEC as a sophomore and was the most valuable player in the BCS Championship Game when Auburn toppled Oregon 22-19 in January 2011, has been making his presence felt in spring drills, Malzahn said.

"You can see them [the returning running backs] improving," the coach said. "Mike's been real good for those two in understanding the blocking schemes."

Meanwhile, Aplin is working with a few new faces at receiver to go with returning starter Taylor Stockemer, which should make the spring game interesting as players try to step up into spots vacated by the likes of Dwayne Frampton. Some of those names include J.D. McKissick, Carlos McCants, Julian Jones and Earl Lucas.