Kats not complacent despite 2-0 start
9/21/2016 12:44:00 PM | Football
HUNTSVILLE – The Sam Houston State football program has started its season 2-0 and checked in as the second-ranked team nationally. Still, the focus remains on areas of improvement.
“We want to play four quarters,” head coach K.C. Keeler said. “After watching the tape, I felt really good about 95 percent of the game. We openly discussed it in our team meeting about the difference between us and North Dakota State is those guys make those five plays on offense and five plays on defense. We have to limit our turnovers and mistakes.”
On Saturday, Sam Houston jumped out to a 27-point halftime lead, eventually hanging on to a 44-31 victory at Lamar. That 'let up' has fueled the players, including P.J. Hall, who was named STATS FCS Defensive Player of the Week after recording nine tackles, including 4 ½ for loss, and a safety.
“It has driven us a lot,” Hall said. “We knew that we settled a lot during the game when we could have just knocked them out from the go. We know later on there could be a better team that could come back and beat us. We don't want that to happen so we're focused on fixing that problem right now.”
On Saturday, Sam Houston visits Houston Baptist for a 7 p.m. kickoff at Husky Stadium on Fox College Sports. Despite lopsided victories in the first and only three meetings between the two programs, Keeler's bunch has remained focused on the game ahead and not on the looming matchup with Stephen F. Austin.
“You would have thought this was SFA week because of how hard we've practiced and the mental focus,” Keeler said. “I was disappointed after the game on Saturday that we let Lamar back in it. Our kids have come out and really practiced with a great sense of urgency about us getting better. We're trying to become the best team and we've got to focus on doing that.”
The Bearkats enter Saturday's matchup ranked first in the country in total offense (633 yards per game), second in passing offense (358.5 yards per game), third in scoring offense (51.5 points per game) and 10th in rushing offense (274.5 yards per game).
Through two games, Sam Houston has scored 14 touchdowns from 10 different players. That depth is no more apparent than in the backfield where Corey Avery, Javin Webb, Remus Bulmer and Jordan Brown have all split carries.
“These last two days of practice have been very intense,” Webb said. “We have been getting more physical. We've put an emphasis on playing fast. We like to play with a real fast tempo. Hopefully on Saturday we can clean up a lot of the mental errors we had last week and play a lot faster football.”
