Conque’s Comments: ‘Jacks Take Advantage of Bye Week, Begin to Prepare for Nicholls

Photo by: Hardy Meredith | SFA Photography

Conque’s Comments: ‘Jacks Take Advantage of Bye Week, Begin to Prepare for Nicholls

11/3/2017 3:59:00 PM | Football

SFA head coach Clint Conque talks about last weekend’s 34-7 win at Lamar and discusses the bye week

By: Luke Bolanos | Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations

THE BYE WEEK AFTER A VICTORY
The Stephen F. Austin football team picked up their second-straight win last Saturday night in Beaumont, Texas, defeating Lamar 34-7 on the road. The victory marked the second road win for the Lumberjacks (4-5, 4-3 Southland) on the season as SFA improved to 4-1 against in-state FCS opponents. Racking up a season-high 571 yards on offense and outgaining the Cardinals by an astounding 346, the 'Jacks had a 300-yard passer (So. Jake Blumrick), a 100-yard receiver (So. Tamrick Pace) and a 100-yard rusher (Sr. Kijana Amous) in the same game for the first time since Nov. 23, 213.

SFA has been enjoying their bye week over the past five days as the team takes time to heal both physically and mentally after playing one of the toughest schedules in the nation through the first nine games of the season. Having their open date on the 10th week of the season, the 'Jacks are one of the final two teams in the Southland to have their bye with Southeastern Louisiana having off next weekend.

Next weekend SFA will battle No. 17 Nicholls for senior day and the Lumberjacks' final game inside Homer Bryce Stadium this year. Sitting at 4-3 in Southland Conference play, SFA has a chance to collect five league wins for the first time since 2014 when the 'Jacks reached the FCS playoffs. SFA is in pursuit six total wins this season and its first winning season since 2014.

Head Coach Clint Conque's Comments

Opening statement
"Solid road win, anytime you can go on the road and win in this conference it's very positive. I'm very happy for our players, first and foremost. I mean they are the ones putting in the work. Our coaching staff, especially coach (Ben) Beasley, gave him the game ball after the game. It has been a long rivalry but we haven't played them in three years. The last time we played them, it was the year before I got here, we lost on the last play of the game on a long field goal. So, to go back down there to Beaumont having not played since then and to get that win, I'm just pleased all around. Shout out to our spirit groups and the Lumberjack marching band, making the trip in big numbers. Our fans, it was a pretty crisp evening with about 10 MPH winds."

"Our young men were prepared and executed well for the most part. Defensively, again, I thought it was a dominating performance, 225 yards of total offense. Last week was 268, so we continue to grow there. I think we had 12 tackles for loss, which is a big number. We were very aggressive, only gave up one score and really never felt threatened, except for maybe one other drive inside the 40 or 35. The week before Lamar scored four touchdowns against Sam Houston State on the road, over 500 yards of offense. We shut them down, give credit to coach (Jeff) Byrd and his staff and certainly our players on that side of the ball. Offensively, nearly 600 yards of offense, we were 5-for-5 in the red zone, which is positive. Some of those were touchdowns, which was good. We had 31 first downs, a pretty balanced attack running the ball, big night running the ball, and then a big night throwing the ball. On special teams, (Storm) Ruiz was really good again. Really his only miss was against Central Arkansas, last week we had an exchange issue, not his fault. He kicked a season-long 43-yarder into that 10 MPH wind. We covered it well, got a turnover, Chris Wilkerson. We punted it well and had a couple of returns, nothing remarkable there, but pretty solid all around from an overall standpoint. Very few penalties once again, I was really pleased with how we held our poise. The last week we had a couple of unsportsmanlike penalties. We have been pretty disciplined from that standpoint."

"The thing I was very unhappy with was the turnovers, five turnovers, we left multiple points on the field. We scored 34 and we probably left three scores on the board. That's eight turnovers in the last two weeks. It's very uncharacteristic for our teams over the years to turn the ball over. We had some individuals with some big nights. Jake Blumrick over 300 yards passing, his career best. Tamrick Pace, maybe 150 and a touchdown. Kijana Amous, another 100-yard game. We got (Josh) McGowen back, he has basically been out for about a month with a broken hand. You see fresh legs and speed gives us a different dynamic there. I thought defensively, Rayshad Nichols, a redshirt freshman, and sophomore Anthony Jacobs, junior Lawrence Ghansah, those guys played really, really well. I want to give a shout out to Jimmy Price for making his first collegiate start in place of Josh Keith, who didn't make the trip because he was in the concussion protocol; he will be available this week. Cooper Williams came in, probably about the fourth or fifth drive of the game, a sophomore from Houston coming off of a redshirt medical year. He played really well for us on the offensive line. A lot of young kids stepped up, we had some seniors make some plays, and our receiving core (Frank) Iheanacho, (Terian) Goree, it was just a sold win."

On the defensive play, holding Lamar to just 225 yards of total offense
"There is no question that we are playing with a great deal of confidence. We had a complete remake on defense. We didn't get the results that we were looking for early in the season. That's just going through growing pains, a new scheme and new coaches on that side. We are still a work in progress, but you can see that we are making progress. We went into the game third in the conference in scoring defense and only gave up seven points. We are tackling better, we missed a few more tackles this week. When the score got to 24-7 we got into a two-shell and they got a couple of jet-sweep runs. I'm very pleased with what we are getting from that side of the ball. As the game went on we looked a little heavy-legged, we were tired. Obviously, the open date is going to come at a great time, not just for the defense but for the entire team. I'm tremendously encouraged on what we are seeing. We are setting the bar pretty high now on how we want to be playing defense for the rest of the year."

On the offensive production at Lamar
"It starts with the offensive line, we have some combinations working there and again I just mentioned two young players that have really had to step up. We are getting hacks on people up front, tight ends are blocking well. Will Taylor with a touchdown reception was actually our offensive player of the week. He played a complete game. Jake Blumrick is obviously feeling much more comfortable, we have simplified some things for him and our receivers are making some big plays. Last week, we felt going in it that it was more of a horizontal game to open the run, and the way Lamar plays defense we felt like we could attack them vertically. When you look at the running backs I really like that room. We played without Juan Day, we played without Cody Williams, our starting receiver. I'm just so happy for our senior Kijana Amous, it's been three weeks in a row where he has big total offense numbers. Coming off the conference player of the week award, he put together another big night. It's the balance that we all strive for, to be able to run the ball effectively and to throw the ball effectively. We had a couple of drops still. We are still nowhere near where we want to be, but we are a work in progress there and you can see some of these young kids start to mature. What's encouraging is that they are all young, and that's not to discount the 10 seniors we have on the team because a lot of those guys are contributing at a high level as well. You can start to see the synergy of all three phases coming together. We are getting better every week."

On how important the bye week is
"It's really good. I wanted one about three weeks ago and I am really glad we have one now. I saw the injury report this weekend and there are like 20 names with various levels of injury. We really need, first of all, the physical healing. Really working hard on our rehabilitation. We hope to get a handful of guys that we didn't have this week back, that's number one. Number two, we are going to get into the strength and conditioning side, we are going to get into the weight room four times this week. Try to recapture some of that, and hit them hard with the nutrition aspect of what we want to do. Academic healing, a big time to catch up in school. We don't have to travel, there's not a game. We will get a couple of practices in later in the week. We will give these guys the ability to get away from this building, the coaches and us from them at some level. They can come back physically, mentally, and emotionally ready for this stretch drive, because we have a great deal to play for after the bye week. From a coaching standpoint, we have about half the staff in, half the staff on the road recruiting. We are doing some phone recruiting with the ones that are in house. We kept some back to help game planning for our next opponent. It will be fun to sit down and watch a bunch of football games on Saturday and not have a skin in the race. As I mentioned, we got senior day coming up, the last home game of the season at Homer Bryce Stadium. We finish the year on the road to retain Chief Caddo, which is always a big deal. We have a chance to go 6-3 in conference play, which I guess hasn't happened here since 2010. I know we were 5-3 and made the playoffs in 2014. The time away will give us time emotionally, physically, mentally, academically to recharge and get back to work on the next game plan."

-SFA-