Muleriders hoping to keep momentum after upset
Southern Arkansas heads to the Sooner State for the first time this season and will carry a Top 25 defense nationally across state lines for its Week 3 matchup with Southwestern Oklahoma State under first-year head coach Chet Pobolish.
The Muleriders boast the top scoring defense (11.5 ppg) and the top total defense (273.5 ypg) in the Great American Conference and have scored three of the team's nine touchdowns this season on the defensive side of the football: tops in the nation.
The Mulerider offense, after a sluggish start, scored 14 second-half points in a road upset of No. 7 Harding on Sunday; the highest ranked opponent that SAU has defeated in the program's Division II era (199596) and the first win for Southern Arkansas in Searcy since 2003.
That unit ranks fifth nationally in third-down conversion with just under a 57 percent success rate. Redshirt senior signal caller Barrett Renner needs just one touchdown pass to move into second place all time on the collegiate touchdown passing list in the state of Arkansas.
The Muleriders and the Bulldogs meet for the eighth time all time tonight at 6 p.m. from ASAP Energy Field in Weatherford, Oklahoma.
SCOUTING SOUTHWESTERN OKLAHOMA
Southwestern Oklahoma clashes with a nationally-ranked opponent for the second straight week after dropping a 41-8 decision on the road at No. 14/15 Ouachita last Saturday. The Bulldogs began the Chet Pobolish era with a bang as they outlasted Arkansas-Monticello in the season opener 49-35.
SCOUTING THE OFFENSE
The Bulldogs enter Week 3 averaging 28.5 points per game behind the Great American Conference's fourth-best total offense which averages 412.5 yards per game. SWOSU junior quarterback Casey Freeman is averaging 260.0 passing yards per game; the fifth-highest mark through two games in the GAC this season. Additionally, Freeman's 200.2 pass efficiency ranks second in the league.
Freeman's top target in Jared Rayburn is currently averaging 68.0 receiving yards per game and ranks 10th in the conference in all-purpose yards with 113.0 per game. Junior Kyshawn Richards has emerged as one of the biggest all-purpose threats in the Great American Conference through the season's first two weeks as he leads the league in all-purpose yards with 151.0 per game. Richards is also the team's leading rusher averaging 51 yards per game, while Jermaine Mask has totaled 94 yards on the ground this season.
SCOUTING THE DEFENSE
The SWOSU defense is
allowing 38 points per game this season and 458 total yards of offense per week.
The Bulldogs do own the league's fourth-lowest pass defense efficiency at 110.
Senior linebacker Clay Wilkerson is the unit's leading tackler averaging seven per game.
Seven other players are responsible for at least seven tackles this season, including defensive linemen Dejai Johnson and TJ Harris.
As a defense, SWOSU has recorded six tackles for loss totaling 28 yards to go along with two quarterback hurries and a pair of fumble recoveries.
THE SERIES
This will be the just eighth meeting all-time between Southern Arkansas and Southwestern Oklahoma as the two teams first began playing each other in 2011 as conference opponents in the newly-formed Great American Conference.
The first six meeting meetings were decided by a combined 24 points, and the largest margin of victory in those games was just nine points as SAU beat SWOSU 31-22 in the initial meeting in 2011.
In the teams' most previous meeting, Southern Arkansas picked up a 38-14 win in Magnolia and in the previous seven meetings, the margin of victory is by less than seven points.
In 2014, SWOSU picked up their first victory in the series with a 27-24 win at home.
Overall, the Muleriders hold a 6-1 advantage in the all-time series and are 2-1 in Weatherford.