Keopple familiar with path
Southern Arkansas University’s Bill Keopple is the exception to the rule in his profession, someone willing to eschew coach speak when talking about his team and the conference race during the middle of the season.
Ask Ouachita Baptist’s Todd Knight or Henderson State’s Scott Maxfield about the possibility of having four Arkansas teams battling it out for the Great American Conference championship in the final three weeks, and you’ll hear about this week’s opponent, along with the I-don’t-even-know-who-we play-next spiel. Normal stuff, for sure. Keopple, by comparison, sounds more like Washington State’s outspoken Mike Leach.
Maybe Keopple won’t launch into a debate about the pros and cons of munching candy corn as a Halloween treat like Leach did at this time last year, but Keopple is willing to step back and talk about the big picture.
Even when heading into Week 7 of the GAC schedule, with SAU, Henderson State and Harding all sitting at 5-1, one game behind 6-0 OBU.
“We’re hoping to get ourselves in position to play for the conference championship,” Keopple said, peeking ahead to the final three weeks when SAU plays Henderson State, OBU and arch-rival ArkansasMonticello, which is also in the mix at 4-2. “Someone needs to knock off Ouachita. … We’d be more than happy to do that.”
One fear Keopple has, even if the Muleriders do run the table, is the possibility of a three-way tie between SAU, Harding and OBU.
“The problem we all have right now is someone else needs to beat Harding,” Keopple said of the Bisons, who do not have a .500 team left on the schedule. “They are really sitting in a good
place. I don’t see anybody left on their schedule that can even give them a battle. They’re looking at 10-1.”
Keopple said a three-way tie between SAU, Harding and OBU does not bode well for the Muleriders.
“We’d be the odd one out,” Keopple said. “That would be awful.”
That can be debated, since an SAU victory over OBU, currently No. 5 in the American Football Coaches Association Top 25, could leap the Muleriders over the Tigers in the Division II Region 1 ranking.
There are many other possibilities out there, but nobody but Keopple really wants to talk about them, even though Maxfield said after a Week 4 loss to Harding he’d sign up for 10-1 right then.
Keopple, meanwhile, said he knows there is much work to be done before the Arkansas teams square off with each other in two weeks, and it starts with Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. matchup with Southeastern Oklahoma State (1-5) in Magnolia.
A Week 8 date against East Central (Okla.) (1-5) in Ada, Okla., also awaits before the Arkansas teams engage in their season-ending threeweek round robin.
Keopple said last year’s 21-0 loss at Southeastern Oklahoma sent SAU, then 6-0 and 15th-ranked in the American Football Coaches Association poll, on a downward spiral.
“We definitely owe them one,” Keopple said. “We were on our high horse a little bit. I thought we were good.”