Opponent Preview: Houston Baptist
10/17/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Stephen F. Austin remains on the road this weekend, heading down to Houston for the Lumberjacks' first-ever meeting with the Huskies at Houston Baptist at Husky Stadium Saturday. SFA is seeking its second-straight road victory for the first time since 2011 after snapping a 12-game road losing streak last weekend at Nicholls.
SFA and Houston Baptist get underway at 7 p.m. with the game streaming live at FoxSportsSouthwest.com with the game re-airing over the air on Fox Sports Southwest at 7 a.m. on Monday, October 20. Fans can also listen online as Rob Meyers will have the call on Q107.7 FM as well as online at Q1077.com. Live stats are available at HBUHuskies.com with in-game Twitter updates @SFA_Football.
Game Storylines
• Saturday’s game at Houston Baptist will be a homecoming of sorts for a large contingent of SFA’s roster as 19 Lumberjacks hail from the Houston area. Five ‘Jacks (Keavon Madison, Hipolito Corporan, Robert Sylvester, Maurice Poullard and Ashante Joseph) return to their hometown of Houston with the surrounding areas of The Woodlands (DJ Ward), Spring (Hayden Scott, Patrick Martin and Rodney Young), Rosenberg (Eugene Wright), Pearland (Marlon Walls), Angleton (Joshawa West), Kingwood (Allen Stewart), Klein (BJ Fashola), Waller (Chris Wilkerson), Mont Belvieu (Jeremy Neff), Dickinson (Byron Williams), Missouri City (Darrion Ardoin) and Danbury (Mitchell Zimmerle) well represented.
• In addition to Saturday’s victory snapping SFA’s road losing streak, it also brought to a close another extended streak. With six rushing touchdowns and no passing touchdowns against Nicholls, it marked the first Lumberjack victory without scoring a passing touchdown since October 12, 2002 when SFA, ironically, defeated Nicholls in Thibodaux 17-14. SFA has notched 64 victories during that 12-year span, recording at least one passing touchdown in each.
• Already SFA's all-time career touchdown leader, RB Gus Johnson needs just four yards to move into second all-time among SFA's career rushers. Johnson has 3,077 career yards and is three yards back of Andy Hopkins' (1967-70) 3,080 career yards. A Walter Payton Award candidate, Johnson leads the nation with 13 rushing touchdowns while ranking second nationally in yards per carry (8.61), third in scoring (13.0 ppg), sixth in rushing yards (853) and seventh in rushing yards per game (142.2), leading the Southland Conference in each category.
Earlier this week, head coach Clint Conque held his weekly media session, looking back at the victory at Nicholls while previewing this week's game at Houston Baptist:
On final thoughts about Nicholls:
“I thought that we played solid. I thought we prepared well, and that our team handled the adversity of the trip. The fifty minute weather delay, I thought they handled it the right way. We came out on point again offensively and defensively. We shot ourselves in the foot on a couple of drives, dropped balls, a drive-ending penalty, we missed a hot throw, we missed a fourth down. I give credit to Nicholls, I thought they played a very inspired and very physical football game. The second half, we kind of separated ourselves and took the lead, outscoring them in the second half 35-13. We were a little short handed. We went without six regulars, a starter or two and guys that play a lot of football for us. It was good to get a road win, and it was good to get a conference win, putting us at 4-2 for the first half of the season and 1-1 in conference. We have some corrections that we need to make, some mistakes that we need to continue to address, but we are playing a little bit cleaner as we move forward. I still don’t think that we have played a complete game yet, but the potential is still there for this team to improve in the second half of the season.”
On responding after a slow start at Nicholls:
“One of the things going back to the UCA game is that we didn’t finish that game the way that we wanted to, so it’s kind of been something that we’ve talked about coming off of our film study last week. We’ve emphasized those things in practice this week, and then again at halftime last week we talked about it, about doing your job and finishing your job. I thought they did a nice job of responding to that, and a nice job of finishing on Saturday.”
On how he would grade his team at the halfway point of the season:
“Well, I think that our quarterback play has become a little bit more consistent. Certainly Gus (Johnson) has had a monster year. I’ve been impressed with our offensive line and the fact that we’ve stayed pretty healthy there and I think that those starters are doing a good job. Our tight ends are starting to mature now. We’re still looking for that one explosive player outside. Defensively, with a new coaching staff completely over there and new schemes all the way around, I think that they are adjusting nicely. We are still in major work and construction over there, but when we do things right it’s pretty impressive to see. I think that our kicking game is getting a little bit better. I’m not sure what the grade would be, but I’m starting to see over the last two or three weeks, starting with the Weber State game through the open date and even with the defeat against UCA, and then the win last week that we are taking some steps forward to be a little bit more consistent in all three phases of the game. That is credit towards the assistant coaches and their attention to detail, as well as the players responding to that. We are starting to see our penalties go down every week a little bit more, fewer missed tackles, fewer missed assignments. But the missed assignments are what is getting us in trouble, and we are not as detailed as I’d like to be in that area. Overall, I’m pleased and I know that there is another level that we can get to with this years team.”
On the matchup with Houston Baptist:
“Anytime you take over an existing program that has been struggling like we have, that’s a huge challenge. But when you are starting a program from scratch that is an enormous undertaking, and coach Shealy and his staff are doing it the right way. They are recruiting high school players, and they’ve got two or three recruiting classes under their belt. You can see the athleticism at the skill positions. The thing that is usually the last thing to come is your offensive and defensive lines, but they get lined up they’re in the right spots and they play pretty disciplined. The times that they have gotten beaten badly it’s by teams that are deeper and bigger and more experienced. But they are long and they are athletic, and we are in no position to take anyone lightly. The focus is on us, and how we prepare, and how we expect to prepare, and how we expect to play. We get to go down to Houston, and we signed five players out of the greater Houston area this year. We’ve recruited that city and the metropolitan area for a long time, so it gives us an opportunity to go into a major media market, one of the major media markets in the nation, and hopefully put our best foot forward. I suspect that we will have a good following with the alumni in that area and people making that trip here from East Texas, so it’s a huge game It’s the next game, and it’s an opportunity for us to go 5-2 and 2-1 in the league before we come back home, and also to be able to go into a major metropolitan area like Houston and put our football program on display. I’ve know coach Shealy for a while, and I knew his dad, and he is doing the right things with that program. We are going to prepare to play another inspired football team playing at home looking for the second win of the season.”
On what to expect playing at Husky Stadium:
“I know that they are excited to have football on their campus, and I think that they have had good crowds. It’s a brand new stadium, one-sided, and they will work on the next phase in the upcoming year or two. It is always good to go deep into one of the areas that you recruit, one where you have a lot of alumni, and hopefully prepare well and play well. Everything that we do is a recruiting opportunity, whether it be a game, phone call, social media, visits at the school, all of those things are very important, and getting down there into an area that is so deep and rich in high school talent, we really want to put on a solid performance.”
-SFA-
