Bearkats crank up offense
Briscoe tosses school-record 7 TD passes
Stephen F. Austin was looking good after forcing Sam Houston State to punt on its first two possessions. However, it didn’t take long for the second-ranked FCS team in the nation to turn back into the Bearkats.
Displaying a quickstrike offense, to go with a solid defensive outing, Sam Houston State routed SFA 63-28 on Saturday at NRG Stadium in Southland Conference play.
“It’s exciting when you have a team like this,” said Sam Houston coach K.C. Keeler, who collected his 200th win in 23 years as a college head coach .“I feel really good where we’ re going.
“We’re not there yet, but we’re on the road to being a really good football team.”
There was little the Lumberjacks could do to slow down the Bearkats. Sam Houston State quarterback Jeremiah Briscoe threw for a school single-game record seven touchdown passes and 438 yards. The Be ark ats snapped SFA’s three-game win streak and wonthe Battle of the Piney Woods for a sixth straight year, before a crowd of 27,411.
Nathan Stewart and Yedidiah Louis had two touchdown receptions each for Sam Houston State (4-0, 3-0), which is behind only North Dakota State in the national polls.
Corey Avery rushed for two TDs for the Bearkats, who had 653 yards. Backup running back Remus Bulmer rushed for 119 yards.
“That’s an elite offensive football team,” SFA coach Clint Conque said. “We got a lot of work to do, but I do believe wegot a chance to be a pretty good football team.
“They keep dialing up those backs and quality receivers, and there were some good catches made and throws from them.”
After punting on its first two series, Sam Houston State scored touchdowns on its next four possessions to take control of the Southland Conference game. After onequarter, the Bearkats led 28-0 and had accumulated 252 yards.
Sam Houston State had first-half scoring drives that took 39, 40 and 44 seconds. Briscoe, who did not play in the fourth quarter, passed for 334 yards in the opening half.
“This is the best game we’ve played,” Briscoe said. “We have such high expectations. We’ve played well the last couple of weeks, but we’ve been frustrated because we knew that’s not the best we could do.
“Coming into this week, we knew we were going to have to play our best offensive football to win. And I think we did that. It’s really special what our offense can do when we play our best football.”
After the first quarter, SFA was playing catch up. Hunter Taylor passed for 263 yards and a touchdown, and backup Zach Conque passed for 116 yards andtwo touch downs. SF A’ s Tam rick Pace had 11 receptions for 144 yards.
The Lumberjacks (3-2, 2-1) could not run the ball effectively, limiting their efforts to keep pace with the Kats, who led 42-7 at halftime, piling up 402 yards of offense over the first two quarters.
SF A passed for 379 yards, but rushed for only 67 yards on 32 attempts. Last year the Lumber jacks rushed for 336 yards in a 34-28 loss to the Kats.
Defensive end Derick Roberson had two of Sam Houston’s five sacks.