Opponent Preview: Southeastern Louisiana
10/24/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Stephen F. Austin gets set for its toughest test to date, getting set to battle reigning Southland Conference champion and eighth-ranked Southeastern Louisiana Saturday at Homer Bryce Stadium. The game is SFA's Homecoming game for the 2014 season as kickoff is set for 3 p.m.
Homer Bryce Stadium will be the backdrop for the Southland Television Network Game of the Week this week as SFA and Southeastern Louisiana go head-to-head Saturday afternoon. Lincoln Rose will have the call of the game with Lemont Williams serving as color analyst and Brooke Bentley working the sidelines. The game will kick at 3 p.m. Saturday and will air across the Southland TV affiliates, which includes Suddenlink channel 8 in Nacogdoches, DirecTV channel 18 and Dish Network channel 54. The game will also be streamed live online at ESPN3. For a complete listing of Southland TV Network affiliates, visit Southland.org.
SFA fans unable to make it to Nacogdoches for this weekend's Homecoming game against Southeastern Louisiana can still stay up to date on every Lumberjack play. Live video of the game can be seen by logging on to ESPN3 or Southland.org, as well as downloading the Southland Conference app. 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 SFAJacks.com with in-game Twitter updates @SFA_Football.
Game Storylines
• SFA and Southeastern Louisiana meet for the 18th time Saturday as the Lumberjacks hold a 9-7-1 (.559) edge in the all-time series. The two teams first met in 1950, going head-to-head eight times between then and 1985 when Southeastern Louisiana suspended its football program. Since the Lions rejoined the Southland Conference in 2005, the `Jacks have posted a 5-4 record against Southeastern. The Lions have won the last two meetings, including a 56-14 victory in 2013 in Hammond, but SFA is 4-3 against Southeastern at Homer Bryce Stadium, having won the last three meetings between the two teams in Nacogdoches. Head coach Clint Conque has experienced some success against the Lions, posting a 4-2 mark all-time against Southeastern Louisiana.
• Senior RB Gus Johnson continues to etch his place among the all-time greats in SFA as he now sits second all-time in career rushing yards. With his 133-yard performance against Houston Baptist, Johnson now has 3,210 yards as a Lumberjack, surpassing Andy Hopkins' 3,080 yards from 1967-70 and ranking 10th all-time in Southland Conference history. Johnson now sets his sights on Leonard Harris' 3,771 career yards, sitting 561 yards shy of the all-time leader, meaning he will need to average 112.2 yards over the final five games of the season. Johnson, who is already SFA's all-time leader with 45 career touchdowns, now sits sixth all-time in SLC history for career touchdowns, sitting well within striking distance of a handful of players.
• Three of the most feared Stephen F. Austin defensive football players from the 1990s and a key component of the Ladyjack basketball teams from that same era comprise the 2014 Stephen F. Austin Hall of Fame class. Football players Terrance Shaw, Jeremiah Trotter and Cedric Walker and women's basketball player Kristen Armour-Webb have been announced as the four members of the 2014 Hall of Fame class. The quartet will be inducted during the Hall of Fame ceremony on Saturday, October 25th. Shaw and Walker were teammates in the SFA defensive backfield for three seasons (1991-93) as opponents averaged just 160 passing yards per game during that span. Trotter then emerged as one of the top linebackers in the country from 1995-97 as opposing offenses managed just 18.6 points and 130.6 rushing yards per game during those three seasons. Armour-Webb served as the point guard during on a handful of powerful Ladyjack teams that won three SLC titles from 1992-96. SFA also made four NCAA tournament appearances during her career, advancing to the Sweet 16 in 1993 and 1996.
Earlier this week, head coach Clint Conque held his weekly media press conference and reflected back on the Lumberjacks' win at Houston Baptist while looking ahead to this week's challenge against eighth-ranked Southeastern Louisiana:
On recapping the Houston Baptist game:
“We’re certainly pleased to gain another win. That’s two in a row on the road and it pushes us to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the league play. We accomplished what we set out to do, and that is to win a college football game against a scholarship program. I know it’s a young program, but they were really well coached, feisty, and I think Vic Shealy is doing a heck of a job. He is doing it the right way primarily with high school players. We kicked the game off at 7:04PM, bring the opening kickoff back 97-98 yards, we score the next play and then basically after the next snap we are into a two hour power delay. That was the fourth time this season that we have had what we call a “Geronimo” situation in our program. On the road the last two weeks, we’ve had delays, and we’ve been able to get the win. We started back at around 9:00, by about 10:00 it’s 31-6. Then it got late and we kind of got a little complacent. I’ve got to do a better job of keeping our kids focused; that’s my responsibility. I don’t believe the game was ever in doubt. We certainly didn’t play as well as we wanted to from kick off to the end of the game, which was about a five hour period of time pretty much, but both teams had to go through the same situation. We’re pleased to get the win, and for a team and program that has not had a great deal of success the last three years, being in this position is something we are excited about. Our players are excited about it. We want our team to be very mature and methodical and efficient and all of that, but they are young kids and haven’t experienced a great deal of success. So we’re continuing to learn and grow with every situation that we seem to be getting faced with from week to week. We accomplished what we wanted to get done, and I appreciate our fans that came to the game. We had a great following that stayed throughout the two hour power delay.”
On getting ready for the stretch run of the season:
“We’re in for a challenge, no question. Obviously our focus right now is on Southeastern Louisiana. Since they joined the conference I have always believed that they have had the finest collection of athletes in the league, and since Ron Roberts has taken over the program they have added to that. They are a transfer-based type program, led by their Oregon transfer at quarterback, Bryan Bennett. I may be speaking out of turn, but it might be the finest collection of athletes - size, speed, and ability that has come into Homer Bryce Stadium in quite a while. They are very athletic, very physical. They took down a really good Central Arkansas team this past weekend, and they took Tulane to the brink before losing one of their two losses. Everything that we do now is magnified, but we’ve put ourself in a position and the conference has played out to where we control our own destiny. That may be premature to say, but going into this week, Southeastern is the only unbeaten team in the league. We have only one conference loss, and we’ve got them this week at home for Homecoming. It’s Hall of Fame weekend, it’s supposed to be a spectacular day. I’ve heard numbers like 13, 14 thousand (for attendance), and we should have at least that many. You’ve got one of the top eight programs in the country coming in here, we’re sitting at a pretty good record right now, and we couldn’t ask for a better situation than what we have this weekend. We are getting a little bit healthier and I don’t think it would shock me if we had 15,000 people here this weekend.”
On the gameplan for stopping Southeastern Louisiana:
“We’ve just got to be sound, and if you stick your nose in the wrong gap on defense, if you get your eyes in the wrong place, they are going to make you pay for it. They’ve been doing it for a long time, they are just doing it with even better players now. They are a zone read type of team. If you don’t have the dive, the quarterback, and the pitch taken care of, the next play is an extra point. We are going to have to have a tremendous game from a discipline standpoint, and I haven’t pulled any punches with our players and I’m certainly not going to do it with our fans or the media. This is an outstanding football team. This team went undefeated in the conference last year, made it to the national quarterfinals, and they’ve got a lot of the key ingredients back this year. We are not going to be favored to win this game, but we don’t have to be the best team. We just have to be really good for 60 minutes on Saturday, and if we can play at a high level, and hopefully get a couple of breaks to bounce our way, we could walk out of here 6-2 and 3-1 (in conference play). That’s the goal, and I don’t care if it’s ugly, clean, or pretty. Obviously we’ve got to play very very well, but by 6:00 Saturday night, it is our hope that we have done enough things right for 60 minutes of a football game to put ourselves in a position to win.”
On the depth of Southeastern Louisiana:
“They are a complete football team. They have return men that are among the best in the country, a kicker that hasn’t missed in a while. The quarterback stuck his toe in the ground and went 75 against Central Arkansas in the second half and they never laid a hand on him. They make you pay for every mistake you make and we are going to have to be methodical and take advantage of every opportunity. They average 40 points a game and are only giving up 20, so there really isn’t a weakness in this team. We did some really good things in the kicking game this past week (at HBU). We blocked a punt, really deflected a second one, had a 97 yard kickoff return, knocked down all of our kicks. Nick (Bruno) is averaging about 44 yards a punt the last three games, Aaron (Thomas) has had some good returns. We are going to have to be solid. I’m not saying we are going to have to play a perfect game, but we are going to have to play without question our best game to date and focus for 60 minutes. It’s my responsibility to make sure as head coach that our team plays with energy all the time. The last two weeks we’ve been on the road, we’ve had significant delays, and we maybe haven’t been as focused as we needed to be. I don’t think that we are going to have any trouble getting the attention of our players this week. They will be able to turn the film on and see that there is a different level, and I our practices are going to be at a different level as well, so we are going to give it our best shot.”
