12 Days Until 90th Piney Woods Battle
9/21/2015 6:06:00 AM | Football
The 90th "Battle of the Piney Woods" presented by H-E-B is less than two weeks away.
As Sam Houston celebrates its 100th season of college football in 2015, it seems fitting that the Bearkats' most famous rivalry sees its 90th renewal Saturday, Oct. 3 at NRG Stadium in Houston, home of the NFL Texans.
H-E-B is teaming up with Lone Star Sports and Entertainment as presenting sponsor of The Battle of the Piney Woods for the next three years starting this fall. The game stands as Texas' oldest NCAA FCS rivalry and is the third oldest current series at all levels of college football in the state.
Baylor and Texas meet for the 101st time this fall while SMU and TCU fight for the “Iron Skillet” for the 92nd time this year.
The Bearkats versus Lumberjacks series dates back to 1923. Sam Houston holds a 52-35 edge in the series with a pair of ties. During the 1930s, the Piney Woods game was an annual Thanksgiving Day football event. Prior to 1983, the contest was the season finale for both teams.
The matchup has been played at NRG Stadium each of the past five years with the crowds growing larger each season. Sam Houston defeated Stephen F. Austin 42-28 on November 1 last year before a crowd of 26,788 fans at NRG Stadium. The crowd was the largest in the 89-year history of the rivalry and for any FCS game in Texas. Such is the popularity of the event that NRG Stadium has been named as the permanent home for the rivalry.
Again in 2015, the contest will be televised live on ESPN3. CBS Radio Houston will be the radio broadcast home of the game on SportsRadio 610 (KILT-AM) as well as on the Bearkat Sports Network on KSAM 101.7 FM in Huntsville.
The 90th “Battle of the Piney Woods” presented by H-E-B again will be one of the top FCS games of the 2015 season. Each of the past six game winners has gone on to advance to the NCAA post-season playoffs. Both Sam Houston and SFA earned FCS berths last year. Five of the last six years, the winner of the rivalry game has emerged as champion of the Southland Conference.
“Having the opportunity to play in an NFL arena is just tremendous,” Stephen F. Austin defensive tackle Lance Skyler said. “Both our teams have so many Houston area alumni and students, Reliant Stadium is the perfect setting for this rivalry. The crowds at Reliant are so loud, it was just a tremendous atmosphere.”
The aspect of the five previous SHSU-SFA showdowns at Reliant that stands out for members of both football teams occurs when the teams take the field just before kickoff.
"What fired us up more than anything is when we came out of the locker room and found all those former Bearkat football players forming a human tunnel to welcome us onto the Reliant Stadium field," SHSU senior offensive lineman Donald Jackson III said. "Wow, that was so exciting. The intensity all those former Bearkats show for this rivalry is contagious."
Sam Houston head coach K. C. Keeler, who directed the Kats to a Southland Conference title and an FCS semifinals appearance in his first season in Huntsville last year, was amazed at the excitement of the rivalry game at NRG Stadium.
“This whole thing was well beyond what I thought it was going to be,” Keeler said. “We were really conscious all week trying to keep our kids sort of level minded. We've probably got after them this week harder than any week we've coached them because we knew that going into this game there was going to be a lot of emotions.
“So we were really trying to hit a lot of details and those kinds of things with the guys. We came out of warm-up and hit the alums. Talk about emotion- It was so cool seeing the guys from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. It's always a brotherhood and it really got the kids fired up. No one understands what the 'Battle of the Piney Woods' rivalry means better than the players who have participated."
Since 2007, the winner of the “Battle of the Piney Woods” has earned a 21-pound solid cedar trophy that displays replica pistols from Texas' frontier past. The logos from both universities are engraved on the handle of the pistols above name plates that will display the outcomes of the contest for the next two decades.
The move of the event to Houston has provided a stage for Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin to gain tremendous media exposure each season in a city in which more than 65,000 university alumni call home. The Bearkats and Lumberjacks were featured in interviews on all of the city's television, radio and newspaper media throughout the week.
The Houston Touchdown Club will host the “Battle of the Piney Woods” luncheon Thursday, Oct. 1 at the Westin Galleria Hotel in Houston at 12 noon.
The event, to take place in the Westin Galleria Hotel's Grand Ballroom, is sponsored by Texas Barge & Boat, Midway Energy Services and CenterPoint Energy. The hotel address is 5060 West Alabama in Houston.
Both head coaches – Sam Houston's K. C. Keeler and SFA's Clint Conque -- will be present at the special event which takes place two days before the 90th "Battle of the Piney Woods" presented by H-E-B.
The two athletic directors from both universities – Bobby Williams from Sam Houston and Robert Hill from Stephen F. Austin – also will speak.
Tickets are $50 each. Tables are $450 ($50 discount). Sponsorship levels (including a table of 10 and program recognition) are $600 (bronze sponsorship), $1,000 (silver sponsorship), $1,500 (gold sponsorship) and $2,500 (platinum sponsorship). All tables are 10 seats each.
All proceeds benefit the Houston Touchdown Club, the Houston chapter of the National Football Foundation, a non-profit educational organization that runs programs designed to use the power of amateur football in developing scholarship, citizenship and athletic achievement in young people.
For more information or to purchase tickets contact Neal Farmer by telephone at (713) 849-9860 or email nfarmer07@att.net or visit www.touchdownclub.org to purchase tickets by PayPal.
Tickets for the 90th “Battle of the Piney Woods” football game on Oct. 3 at 3 p.m. are available online at www.gobearkats.com or at the SHSU Athletic Ticket Office at (936) 294-1729.
