Kats hope to 'pick' up where they left off
11/1/2013 10:27:00 AM | Football
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Sam Houston State football has come a long way since 2010, the first year the Battle of the Piney Woods was held at Reliant Stadium and head coach Willie Fritz's inaugural season with the Bearkats. A lot has changed since that 31-28 loss for SHSU.
SHSU is going to have opportunities on both sides of the ball, since the pass-happy SFA squad has thrown a league-high 14 interceptions. The Kats simply have to take care of business in Saturday's rivalry game.
“(SFA quarterback Brady Attaway) is going to throw the ball to us and it's going to hit our hands four or five times,” Fritz said. “We've got to catch them. In some games, the opponent doesn't catch them. You get that and things kind of start rolling. He gets rid of the ball quickly so it's hard to sack him. For as many times as they throw the ball, they've given up very few sacks. But that style does lead to turning the ball over.
“Get them off point a little bit and have him throwing off his back foot and now he's not nearly as accurate and if you're close in your coverage, you have an opportunity to intercept the ball.”
Even though SFA is leading the league in first downs (223), the Lumberjacks rank at the bottom in third-down conversions at 36 percent. Fritz spoke earlier in the week about SFA's propensity to move the chains, but that his team has to limit big plays.
No one on the defense knows this better than four-year starting cornerback Bookie Sneed, the only member of the SHSU secondary who played in the first three Piney Woods matchups at Reliant.
“We're just keeping the confidence up,” Sneed said. “It's basically going to be like 7-on-7. We might get a few passes caught on us, but it's about getting up after every single play. It's about winning those individual battles. Throughout the course of the week, we've been emphasizing playing fast. That's one thing we try to tell the young guys who are going to get in and play, guys who haven't been able to play in this big game.
“So we're just going to play fast, trust our technique, trust what we're doing and play with confidence.”
Offensively, the Kats realize teams have spent more time game-planning for them, trying to figure out ways to stop their complicated scheme.
“The thing we've got to do is if they're ganging up on the run, like (Northwestern State) last week, we've got to do a better job throwing the ball,” Fritz said. “Play action passes, one-on-one matchups, throwing it and taking what they're giving us instead of trying to force feed it. I think we're doing a better job there. If they're going to crowd the box, give us looks that are hard to block everybody, it puts them one-on-one out on the perimeter. We've got to make them pay for it.”
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