Game 11 • Jacksonville, Ala. • AmFirst Stadium (24,000)
Sam Houston (8-2, 5-1 CUSA) at Jax State (7-3, 6-0 CUSA)
Saturday, November 23 • 11:00 AM CT
TV: CBS Sports Network (Jordan Kent, Logan Ryan)
RADIO: BSN (Carlos Zimmermann, Brian Adams)
HOW TO FOLLOW: Live Stats • @BearkatsFB on X
GAME NOTES: Sam Houston • Jax State
Series vs the Gamecocks: Series tied 6-6
JACKSONVILLE, Ala. – With two games left in the regular season, the Sam Houston Bearkats still control their own destiny for a berth in the Conference USA Championship Game and can take a big step toward the title game on Saturday when it travels to league-leading Jax State to battle the Gamecocks at AmFirst Stadium.
Kickoff of Saturday's contest is set for 11:00 a.m. CT at AmFirst Stadium. It will be aired on CBS Sports Network with Jordan Kent and Logan Ryan on the call. The game can be heard online on the Bearkat Sports Network and Sirius XM Radio and the Bearkat Athletics app with Carlos Zimmermann and Brian Adams on the call from the radio booth.
KATS SET FOR KEY ROAD TEST AT LEAGUE-LEADING JAX STATE
- Not only do the Kats have a path to the CUSA title game, but there is still a path alive for the Kats host the title game. Bearkat wins in their final 2 contests, along with any loss by WKU would send the title game to Bowers Stadium
- Should the Kats fall to JSU on Saturday, there would still be a path alive for the Kats to make the title game, but the path gets murkier as Sam Houston would need help. In addition to Sam Houston needing to beat Liberty in the regular-season finale, the Kats would also need WKU to drop each of its last 2 games to Liberty and Jax State. That scenario would send the Kats to Jacksonville to face the Gamecocks in the title game
- The Kats became the first CUSA team in 2024 to secure bowl eligibility with its win at FIU. Sam Houston is the fourth consecutive program in NCAA to make the transition up and become bowl eligible within the first 2 seasons of being at the FBS (Jax State 2023, James Madison 2023, Liberty 2018)
- The Bearkats have won 11 of their last 14 games after starting their venture into FBS with an 0-8 start in 2023
- Sam Houston is the first FBS program to start a season 0-8 and win at least 8 of its first 10 games the following year
- Now with 96 victories at Sam Houston, head coach KC Keeler stands in second place all-time at the school with only longtime SHSU head coach and former AD Ron Randleman's 131 career victories are more
- Sam Houston picked up its win at Kennesaw State after an 18-day layoff between games, the longest layoff in the nation
- The Kats won games vs FIU and LA Tech despite scoring just 19 total points. The 10 points vs FIU and the 9 points vs LA Tech are the lowest winning scores in a single game in the nation this season
- Those scores held up in large part thanks to the Bearkat defense which has held those opponents to 10 total points. It was the first time the Kats have held consecutive opponents to single digits since 2021 and the least amount of total points allowed in consecutive games since allowing just 7 points in wins over Lamar and Southeastern Louisiana in 2012
- Sam Houston's eight wins have secured its first winning season at the FBS level and 14th in the last 15 seasons overall. The Kats have not had a season with a losing record since 2009 and finished its run at the FCS level with 13 consecutive winning seasons
- Sam Houston has done a great job of mining homegrown talent from the Lone Star State with 96 of the 116 players listed on its roster being from the State of Texas. Per research from Dave Campbell's Texas Football, the 83-percent homegrown roster is the highest percentage of players from the Lone Star State on the roster for any of the 13 FBS programs in Texas
- Sam Houston averaged 282.0 yards per game on the ground in its 4-game win streak earlier this year before falling to WKU, becoming the first team in CUSA to rush for 250+ yards in 4 straight games since FAU did so during the 2018 season
- After finishing 2023 last in Conference USA in rushing, the ground game has been the strength of the offense for the Bearkats in 2024. Despite completing a season-high 22 passes against Kennesaw State, the Kats still have yet to throw for 250 yards in a game this year in a contest. They are currently 1 of 4 teams in the FBS with at least eight wins to their credit to not have a single game with at 250 passing yards. The other teams to do so include Army, Navy and UNLV
SERIES HISTORY
- Sam Houston and Jax State have traveled similar roads on their route to the FBS, and enter Saturday's contest deadlocked at 6-6 in the all-time series with Sam Houston looking to get its first win in Jacksonville since winning in the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs in 2014 (KC Keeler's first season at the helm)
- That was the first of back-to-back meetings in the FCS playoffs between the Bearkats and Gamecocks, with JSU returning the favor with a convincing 62-10 victory in 2015
- The Kats and Gamecocks are battling within the same league for the second time in their history as both were also members of the Southland Conference from 1997 to 2002 with the teams splitting games during that time, 3-3
- Sam Houston and JSU also took part in the WAC/ASUN Challenge in that Spring 2021 season with both leagues joining together to battle for an automatic qualifier to the FCS playoffs. At that time neither league had the minimum amount of schools needed on its own to qualify for the AQ spot to the playoffs
- One year later SHSU and JSU left the FCS to make the jump to the FBS, becoming 2 of 4 teams - along with Liberty and NM State - to join Conference USA in full for the 2023 season
