Opponent Preview: Nicholls
10/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - After enjoying a four-game home stand, Stephen F. Austin heads back on the road, traveling to Thibodaux, La., for a showdown with Nicholls Saturday. The Lumberjacks have won six-straight against the Colonels, including four-straight at Guidry Stadium, and will be searching for their first Southland Conference victory of the season.
The game kicks off at 6 p.m. as live video and live stats will be provided by Nicholls by logging on to GeauxColonels.com. Fans can also listen online as Rob Meyers will have the call on Q107.7 FM as well as online at Q1077.com with in-game Twitter updates @SFA_Football.
Game Storylines
• SFA heads into Saturday's game searching for its first road victory since 2011, a span of 12 games. The streak is the longest road losing streak in program history as the Lumberjacks haven't won a game on the road since defeating Northwestern State 33-0 in Natchitoches in 2011.
• SFA has traditionally had a great deal of success against Nicholls, posting a 23-7 record all-time against the Colonels. The 'Jacks' .767 winning percentage against Nicholls is the highest winning percentage in program history against a foe with at least 10 meetings. SFA is 10-4 all-time in Thibodaux, having won the last four meetings against the teams in Guidry Stadium.
• A pair of Lumberjacks sit on the brink of impressive career milestones. RB Gus Johnson is tied with Cordell Roberson for the most touchdowns in program history at 39, needing just one more to become the 'Jacks all-time touchdown king. K Jordan Wiggs currently sits at 298 career points, three points shy of passing Chuck Rawlison as the Lumberjacks' all-time scoring leader.
Earlier this week, head coach Clint Conque held his weekly media session, looking back at the game against Central Arkansas while previewing SFA's game at Nicholls Saturday evening:
On his thoughts following the Central Arkansas game:
“I’m really hard how hard we competed. The will to win and the execution was outstanding. I thought we played with a lot of passion. It was a very physical football game. We had a lead late in the third quarter, put ourselves in a position to win, had a lot of things going for us. We really needed one more stop but they hit us with a double move which really changed the momentum. With that said, the offense very calmly takes the ball, drives it down to the twenty-five and we get a questionable situation happen there on a non-call and a called fumble that they scoop and score. We had taken the ball the length of the field, a very methodical drive, we were in position to go ahead and score and not leave them a lot of time left, then obviously the tables turned there. But again the offense comes back, starting deep in our territory with three time outs and we drive the length of the field, convert some big plays and we score. With a minute twenty-five left in the game we’re lined up for an onside kick. I recap that by saying that our young men were very resilient in the fact that when the momentum changed, they kept fighting and kept competing. We gave ourselves an opportunity to win and extended the game. Unfortunately we couldn’t get that critical stop in the fourth quarter we really needed. I give credit to UCA for that, but there are lot of lessons to learn. This program has not been in a back and forth type of game recently – a high stakes type of poker game including being efficient and making plays. They made more plays down the stretch than we did. They’ve been in that position quite a bit in the last several years. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned from this experience, but we’ve got to move on to the next challenge which is Nicholls.”
On the focus in practice this week:
“All we’re focused on is getting healthy and fundamentally becoming better and making sure we learned some things from this game. Then we’re trying to win a road game which we haven’t done since the 2011 season, and really that’s the goal. We’re not really talking about the conference race or anything like that. We’re still in October and when we get to November we’ll see what our body of work is.
On the status of Gus Johnson:
“He’s going through some protocol right now and we’ve just been evaluating him day to day. We’ll see how he’s feeling come Saturday. We’ve got some other guys beat up as well. That was a very violent and very physical football game. Both teams went at it pretty hard.”
On Nicholls:
“First of all, they are a Southland Conference opponent on the road. You look at their record and it’s not going to wow you at 0-6, but I’m not sure many teams in our conference would be a whole lot better than what they are. They’ve played one home game and it was against one of the top-five Division II teams in the country. They opened up with Air Force and the University of Arkansas in the SEC and North Texas and then they get Henderson State, the number five team in the country for Division II. They lose their coach, then they have to go on the road to Conway, which is an extremely difficult place to play, and then congratulations, your next game is in Cowboys Stadium against the number four in the country at FCS level. They have some talented young men. They’ve got a running back that is extremely big and very physical and I like the back up running back too. He gives them a great change of pace and change of direction. They’ve got a couple of big play receivers. They had one young man go for 100 yards plus against McNeese Saturday night (Demon Bolt) and he’s a talented young man. They’ve got a big offensive line, which is the strength of their team. They play two quarterbacks quite a bit. (Kalen) Henderson had been a starter up until this week, and then (Beaux) Hebert started and played a couple quarters and moved the ball at times, so we’re really not sure. We’ve got two quarterbacks to prepare for, as well as two talented running backs, a big offensive line, and a couple of big play receivers. Defensively, the linebacker Davin Bovie, he could play for anybody in this conference. They’ve just drawn a tough hand down there with their schedule and losing coach Stubbs. They’re playing with a chip on their shoulder. It was 17-0 against McNeese inside of two minutes in the first half, and they played very well in the first half against the Cowboys. You can see them getting better. They’ve scaled some things back, coach Axmen is putting his stamp on the program.”
On heading back on the road:
“This is a season of firsts. This will be our first bus trip and longest trip of the year. I think we’ve been comfortable playing at home, but now we’ve got to take to the road and move our operation. Again, it’s our longest trip of the year so we’ll see how we handle this and where our maturity level is. We’ve got some bumps and bruises right now, but we’ll continue to work and step up and make no illusion, going on the road in this league is very difficult. I think the young men are looking forward to getting on the field again and make up for last week. We learned a great deal from the last game and we know the history, having not won a road game since 2011. Our players are ready to put that streak to bed.”
-SFA-
