BOTPW at NRG Stadium quickly approaching
9/20/2016 1:16:00 PM | Football
The 91st "Battle of the Piney Woods" presented by H-E-B is less than two weeks away.
H-E-B teamed up with Lone Star Sports and Entertainment as presenting sponsor of The Battle of the Piney Woods and is in its second of three years. 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 102nd time this fall while SMU and TCU fight for the “Iron Skillet” for the 93rd time this year.
The Bearkats versus Lumberjacks series dates back to 1923. Sam Houston holds a 53-35 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 six years with the crowds growing larger each season. Sam Houston defeated Stephen F. Austin 34-28 on Oct. 3 last year before a crowd of 26,990 fans at NRG Stadium. The crowd was the largest in the 90-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 2016, 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 91st “Battle of the Piney Woods” presented by H-E-B again will be one of the top FCS games of the 2016 season. Each of the past seven game winners has gone on to advance to the NCAA post-season playoffs. Five of the last seven years, the winner of the rivalry game has emerged as champion of the Southland Conference.
The aspect of the six 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 football alum 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 consecutive FCS Playoffs semifinals appearances the last two years, 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.
Festivities for this year's event get underway with the fifth annual Battle of the Piney Woods Luncheon in conjunction with the Touchdown Club of Houston. The event is scheduled for noon, Thursday, Sept. 29, at the JW Marriott (5150 Westheimer at Sage) in the Houston Galleria.
The Sam Houston State-Stephen F. Austin Luncheon, presented by Texas Barge & Boat and Midway Energy Services, will feature Sam Houston coach K.C. Keller and athletic director Bobby Williams as well as SFA football coach Clint Conque and athletic director Robert Hill.
Tickets are $50 each. Tables are $500 (regular table), $600 (bronze sponsorship), $1,000 (silver sponsorship), $1,500 (gold sponsorship) and $2,500 (platinum sponsorship). All tables are 10 seats each.
To order tickets, go to the Touchdown Club of Houston's website at touchdownclub.org, and click on the PayPal button. For more information, or to arrange to pay with checks, please call the TD Club's Neal Farmer at 713-849-9860, or e-mail nfarmer07@att.net.
Tickets for the 91st “Battle of the Piney Woods” football game on Oct. 1 at 3 p.m. are available online at www.gobearkats.com or at the SHSU Athletic Ticket Office at (936) 294-1729.
