Conque’s Comments: Southern Utah Awaits ‘Jacks in Home Opener

THE KICKOFF
Stephen F. Austin returns to Nacogdoches for its 2017 home opener Saturday, presented by BancorpSouth. The Lumberjacks host Southern Utah University out of the Big Sky Conference in a 6 p.m. kickoff from inside Homer Bryce Stadium. It will be SFA's final non-conference tilt before heading into Southland Conference play next weekend. Serving as the front end of back-to-back home games, Saturday's contest will be the first of three night games played inside Homer Bryce this season.

FOLLOWING THE LUMBERJACKS
Saturday's game against Southern Utah will be streamed live online at ESPN3, available at ESPN3.com or through the ESPN app on mobile devices. Rob Meyers, the voice of the Lumberjacks, will call the game along with color commentator Kevin Langford on Q107.7 FM, available online at Q1077.com as well as through the Lumberjack Sports Network on the TuneIn app. Live stats will be available at SFAJacks.com, complemented by Twitter updates from @SFA_Football.

ABOUT THE GAME
Presented by Bancorp South, Saturday's game will be featured as a white out and will be both United Way Day and Hurricane Harvey Relief Day. With the people of southeast Texas heavy on everyone's hearts after the destruction left by Hurricane Harvey, the Stephen F. Austin athletics department will be conducting a supply drive to help those in need rebuild. Members of the Lumberjack baseball team, in addition to student-athlete advisory committee (SAAC) members, will be positioned at each gate collecting rebuilding items. Fans are encouraged to bring buckets either filled with interior cleanup items such as liquid household cleaners, dish soap, bleach, scrub brushes, cleaning wipes, sponges and disposable rags; or filled with exterior cleanup items such as crowbars, hammers, utility knives, work gloves, and dust masks to help aid with the recovery from the mass flooding.

Head Coach Clint Conque's Comments

On the biggest takeaways from last weekend at SMU:
"Well there is a few things, first of all it was great to be in Dallas, what a great facility they have there at SMU. People forget, I'm just old enough to remember back in the early 80's SMU Football was the upper center of major Division I college Football. They got a great facility there at Ford Field, and Coach Morris has done a good job of building that program, kind of from the ground up in his image and that's what he wants."

"Certainly it was not the kind of start we wanted to the season, not the start to the game we wanted. We got a little frustrated. Our kids were amped up ready to play, but a pretty youthful team. Eleven first-time starters out of 22 and ten sophomores. So, I thought we played hard, we didn't always play well, indicative of the score, but I thought we knew it was going to be a tough get just because of the experience they (SMU) had coming back. They have one of the best receivers in the country (Courtland Sutton), he commanded a lot of respect all night long when he was in there. They added a few transfers and their team speed was a little better than what we had probably visualized on film. They beat a very quality Houston team at the end of last season, where Coach Herman was. At any rate, it just wasn't the start we wanted and we just kind got down from there."

"The beginning of the game, three and out, we punt, they had a long drive, a time-consuming drive, they have to convert a few third down conversions and they did. We take the opening kickoff down the sideline and the kickoff after that, we take it for a long return, make a first down or two, we've got 1st-and-10 at the SMU 27. You're feeling like you're going to come out of here with points and then we got the pick-six, and it just seems like the air got let out. Then we got the ball back on third down, we miss-manage the center's snap, kicked it around and lost another 25 yards or so. What we've got to learn from it is that adversity is going to happen, and it's how you respond to it. When you've got a young football team you're not always going to get the most positive responses. But I do think we kept battling, we had two long drives and in the fourth quarter we got a long kickoff return, two or three plays later we're in the end zone.

"I thought Jake Blumrick grew as the game went on, we were able to get Foster Sawyer in the game. He did a couple of positive things, obviously there was some rust there. It's game experience and there is no substitute. You can scrimmage all you want, you can talk scenarios, you can put them in those situations in practices, but when you flip the lights on and they're keeping scores for real, every play, every positive, every negative is magnified. We missed way too many tackles, now the good news is we were in position to make tackles and didn't, and some of it had to do with the skill of SMU. You learn from it, you move on and we are excited to be preparing to open up at home this week against a quality Big Sky team, Southern Utah."

On Alize Ward's kickoff return game and special teams:
"I think if there was a real bright spot, it was our kicking game. We snapped it, kicked it, punted it, covered it pretty well and returned it very well at times. I think he (Alize Ward) had a big night returning kicks and Josh McGowen had a 75 to 80-yard return, after they stopped kicking to Alize. You had to pick your poison there and give credit to the guys upfront that were doing the blocking. Outside of the last kickoff where we kicked it out of bounds, I thought given the disasters I have seen on TV in some of the early games and the first game of the season, I thought the kicking game ended up being the positive for us. Now, there are areas we got to clean up too, but we got to move forward."

"I thought Alize, and I've probably already said this, but he was a running back in high school, might be the best running back on our campus and you can see his balance and speed, he's got good vision. Certainly had an interception later in the game that was called back but there are a lot of aspects in his game, defensively, that he knows he has to improve upon. He's one of those sophomores that has got an opportunity to impact our football team and we hope he and the rest of the group take a big step forward this week."

On this week's game against Southern Utah:
"I think they (Southern Utah) are probably going to start nine seniors on defense, again their team is one or two years removed, depending on how to look at it, from the Big Sky championship in 2015. I think they lost in the quarterfinals that year. A lot of elements on that team, guys that were there, started or played, or in that program. They opened up in Oregon but don't let that fool you. Oregon is a pretty tough place to play against a very special group. But well coached, very experienced football team on the defensive side of the ball, a very experienced QB. I love both of their QB's actually. They lost quite a bit of skill position players to graduation but it looks like they restock well with speed and a little bit of size. Their running backs run hard, QB is a returner who was a first-year starter last year. He looks much more poised, very athletic, looks like his arm has gotten stronger and you know they're not going to be intimidated coming to Nacogdoches after having been to Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. They're used to travel. When you play in the Big Sky, you're going a long way every week if you're not at home. We'll have our hands full, we are excited about playing at home and it's the last non-conference game of the season. We're just trying to be 1-0 this week and make the improvements that we need to make to put ourselves in a more competitive position than what we were in last week."

-SFA-