Opponent Preview: West Alabama
9/9/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Stephen F. Austin begins the 44th season of Lumberjack football at Homer Bryce Stadium Saturday when the ‘Jacks host West Alabama at 6 p.m. It marks the second all-time meeting between the two teams as SFA defeated then-Livingston University 49-28 on September 18, 1993 in Nacogdoches.
Broadcast Information
Saturday’s game marks the debut of the second season of SFA football on ESPN3. The game will stream live at ESPN3.com and through the WatchESPN app available on mobile devices and portable electronics. Rob Meyers will have the call of the game available over the air on Q107.7 FM and online at Q1077.com. SFA fans around the world can also listen to the game through the TuneIn app, searching for “Stephen F. Austin”
Five Storylines
• Saturday’s game will be the 11th time SFA has faced a current member of the Gulf South Conference. The Lumberjacks are 6-4 all-time against the league, posting a 5-2 record against Delta State, an 0-2 mark against Mississippi College and 1-0 against West Alabama.
• Head coach Clint Conque is 2-0 all-time against West Alabama during his coaching career, defeating the Tigers 47-7 in 2002 and 35-24 in 2003. The starting quarterback for West Alabama in both of those games was Brett Gilliland, who is currently in his third season as the head coach of his alma mater.
• West Alabama is 0-14 all-time against FCS opponents, but the Tigers have given their FCS foes a run for their money in the past few seasons. UWA lost to South Alabama 20-10 in 2010, McNeese 44-42 in 2013 and 45-34 to Jacksonsville State in 2014.
• Senior quarterback Zach Conque enters Saturday’s game with 4,912 career passing yards, needing just 88 to become the eighth Lumberjack to throw for 5,000 yards in his career. Once he does, he will also hold a unique distinction as Conque will be the only player in program history to have thrown for 5,000 yards and rushed for 1,000.
• SFA has posted a 28-15 overall record in home openers at Homer Bryce Stadium as 2016 marks the 44th season the stadium has served as the Lumberjacks’ home. SFA has won seven of its last eight home openers as the most common opening day opponent for the Lumberjacks has been Prairie View A&M, against who SFA is 5-0 in home openers.
Scouting the Tigers
2016 Record: 0-1 overall, 0-0 Gulf South Conference
Last Game: L at North Greenville 24-23
Head Coach: Brett Gilliland (West Alabama, 2004). Third season at West Alabama and overall (12-11, .522)
Key Offensive Players:
• #1 Austin Grammer (Sr., QB): 29-of-42 (69.1%) for 266 yds. (266.0 avg.), 2 TDs, 1 INT; 9 rushes for 32 yds. (3.6 avg.), 1 TD
• #23 Lakenderic Thomas (Sr., RB): 18 rushes for 124 yds. (6.9 avg.), long of 46
• #17 Donta Armstrong (Jr., WR): 11 catches for 137 yds. (12.5 avg.), 1 TD
• #25 Christian Patterson (So., TE): 6 catches for 46 yds. (7.7 avg.), long of 22
• #9 Barnard McGhee (Jr., WR): 3 catches for 24 yds. (8.0 avg.), long of 16
Key Defensive Players:
• #16 Se’quan Steele (Jr., DB): 6 tackles (5 solo), 1.0 TFL, 1 PBU, 1 FF
• #18 Tavarious Hutchinson (R-Fr., DB): 6 tackles (4 solo)
• #42 Jordan Jones (R-Fr., LB): 6 tackles (2 solo), 1.5 TFL
• #99 Michael Williams (Jr., DT): 6 tackles (1 solo)
• #19 Darius Ellis (So., Ban.): 3 tackles (2 solo), 1.0 TFL, 1.0 sack
Synopsis: West Alabama opened the 2016 season with a 24-23 loss at North Greenville on Thursday, September 1st. The Tigers fell behind 10-0 early in the first quarter, rallying back to take a 23-17 lead with 7:32 remaining in the game. But a blocked extra point proved critical as North Greenville scored with under two minutes to go, handing West Alabama the 24-23 defeat. QB Austin Grammer completed 69 percent of his passes for 266 yards, 137 of which went to WR Donta Armstrong on 11 catches. On the ground, RB Lakenderic Thomas rushed for 124 yards, averaging just shy of seven yards per carry. Defensively, the Tigers had a balanced performance against the Crusaders as four different players finished with six tackles each. LB Jordan Jones was one of those, finishing with 1.5 tackles for loss, while DB Se’quan Steele had a tackle for loss as well as a forced fumble.
Head coach Clint Conque's Press Transcript
On his final thoughts about the game at Texas Tech:
“What a great place and great stadium. There were 60,000 plus fans there and I really thought our guys were excited to be there and prepared. I thought we didn’t flinch and played hard. We just didn’t make enough plays early in the game. We were probably a little conservative on offense the first quarter, trying to be balanced and establish the run. I can’t say enough about Pat Mahomes – he’s just a truly special talent with total command of the system they run. I thought we were able to pressure him and make him extremely uncomfortable. But once he was able to escape that pressure, he made huge plays down the field with his arm and his legs. We were challenged depth-wise. Our starting safety was suspended the first half of the game, and then we lost our starting free safety on the first drive of the game for about a quarter. We had a corner who was coming back from a hamstring injury that we didn’t want to put out there, but it was no place for freshman to play at that point. We were able to create five or six negative plays and get a couple sacks. We held them below their third down conversion percentage from the previous year. But we gave up too many plays and kept our defense on the field too long. The game got away from us in the first half. You look at the second half, and I believe they outscored us 24-14. We take away a lot of positives. We came out of it healthy, it was obviously a big pay day for the university, and great atmosphere and stage for our players to play. The way we look at it was that this was kind of our preseason major scrimmage. We start the season this week with West Alabama at home and we’ll be amped up to play here in East Texas.”
On the experience gained by a handful of new players:
“29 first time players put on the helmet when it counted and seven of those were true freshman this weekend in Lubbock. Those are banked reps. Some were really good, some not quite so good. But they’re all reps that our young people are going to learn from. We made a 43-yard field. Placekicking was an issue at times the first half of last season, so that was encouraging. We had a couple bad punts, but we still averaged 40 yards per punt, including a long of 63. We had early 400 yards of offense and threw for over 300 yards. Joshawa West and Kijana Amous averaged 4.6 yards per carry running the football. We’ve still got a lot to work on. We’ve got to tackle better in space. We found out our conditioning is good, but we can’t leave our defense out there and expose them as much as we did Saturday. But it was a lot of reps for a lot of young players. I looked out there the last three series of the fourth quarter and we had one sophomore, nine redshirt or true freshman, and one senior. That’s just going to pay dividends for those young men starting this week and the rest of this season and their careers.”
On what the ‘Jacks expect against West Alabama:
“Last year they finished 7-4 in a really good conference in the Gulf South Conference. It’s league that I’m very familiar with having coached in it early in my head coaching career. I think they have about 10 four-year transfers, some from Power Five conferences . I believe they signed 47 transfers between the winter signing period last year and the start of fall camp. So, we’re going to see a big, mature, and long football team. They have skill. Their quarterback started one year at Middle Tennessee. They’ve got a Kentucky transfer that’s about 6’4 and have a big offensive and defensive line. They’re used to winning there and they lost their opener by one point on the road. So, I’m sure they will be prepared when they roll in here. This game is still about us and about getting our rotations right. We’ll have Loren Easly back in the fold this week, so we’ll get to work him into the offensive plan. We’ll build on the very positives we did last week, and there were a lot of them believe it or not. But also there are some areas that we need to clean up. If we can do that then we’ll handle our business at home.”
On being able to play at Homer Bryce Stadium:
“I think they will be amped up. There’s nothing like playing at Homer Bryce, certainly with all of our traditions. We officially introduce our new video board. We will be doing a few things with that which will create a tremendous fan experience for the patrons that come to the game. We’ve got a big event with the students here at the stadium Friday night with Holler at Homer. So, I think we’ll have a good crowd, and we need to have a good week of practice to play well for the home folks. It’s always good to be at home and we’re certainly looking forward to starting really our opener. We want to prepare well and play well for our students.”
-SFA-
