Southland football begins Saturday (w/video)
10/9/2009 8:00:00 AM | Football
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It's finally time to get down to business.
All the long hours that have been put in during the past couple of months are about to pay off when Sam Houston State hosts Nicholls in the Southland Conference football opener Saturday at Bowers Stadium.
Records are thrown out the window and each team in the Southland has a clean slate as league action begins. Whoever plays the best from here on out will hoist the Southland Conference championship trophy in the end and advance to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
"It's a huge week for us," Sam Houston head coach Todd Whitten said. "Number one, it is conference play. Conference is the most important thing we play for. Number two, it is homecoming. As a football coach and a football team, this is a really important day for you. With so many Bearkats back on campus, it is important for us to play well."
For the first time since 2004, the Bearkats (2-2) have a good idea of how they stack up against the other schools in the Southland. That's because Sam Houston opened the season with a pair of games against two quality FCS opponents instead of loading the non-conference schedule with multiple games against lower division foes or Football Bowl Subdivision opponents.
The Bearkats dropped a 35-28 heartbreaker to Western Illinois in the season opener, but bounced back and got a big victory against North Dakota State the following week.
Playing those two teams is about as close as it comes to squaring off with another Southland program.
The last time Sam Houston played two FCS schools in non-conference play was 2004, when the Bearkats lost a shoot-out on the road at Missouri State then throttled No. 1 Montana at home.
Sam Houston tied for the Southland Conference title that year and advancd to the semifinal round of the FCS playoffs.
"I think playing Western Illinois and North Dakota State is going to help us tremendously, but we will see," Whitten said. "We have always played up and then down, then we started conference. I think we are going to be more seasoned. I really do. I wish we would have played better at Tulsa. We just didn't handle their speed well.
"I think the schedule in the end is going to be better than years past. It is so important to get rolling in Southland play with a little confidence. The past couple of years we have opened with the top two teams in the league, Central Arkansas and McNeese. We played good hard games with those folks, but it was tough."
The Bearkats' other two non-conference games were against a pair of teams on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Sam Houston lost 56-3 at Tulsa, then blasted NCAA Division II Saint Joseph's of Indiana 41-0 this past weekend.
"We have to move forward now that conference is here," Whitten said. "We were not that crisp against Saint Joseph's. The lightning delay had something to do with that, but we need to play harder and be more focused to be successful this week against a dangerous Nicholls team.
"Every time we play a Southland Conference game, all odds are that it its going to be tight and we can not make any mental errors."
