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August 27, 2008

Bearkats hope to get rolling early in season opener

By Cody Stark The Huntsville Item Wed Aug 27, 2008, 10:15 PM CDT

The season opener has been circled on the calendar since the 2008 Sam Houston State football scheduled came out back in February and the day is finally here.

After beating each other up for the past few weeks, the Bearkats will have a chance to hit a different colored jersey today at 6 p.m. when they battle East Central Oklahoma at Bowers Stadium.

“Going at each other for two or three weeks, it’s finally good to be going against some other people,” SHSU defensive lineman Kevin Smith said Wednesday afternoon. “It’s going to be a good competition with East Central Oklahoma.”

This will be the second year in a row that the Bearkats are opening the season against a Lone Star Conference opponent. Last season, Sam Houston had to hold on for dear life when Angelo State came to Bowers Stadium and almost pulled off the upset, falling 17-13.

The Kats jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the second quarter, but the offense sputtered in the second half as the Rams defense pitched a shutout. Sam Houston was finally able to let out a huge sigh of relief when Angelo State quarterback Josh Neiswander threw an incomplete pass on fourth and seven with 1:25 to go in the game which allowed the guys in orange to run out the clock.

There were some lessons learned from that near disaster and the SHSU players said they intend to come out more focused, not taking the Division II Tigers lightly.

“That game was a good lesson to learn from,” senior wide receiver Justin Wells said after a pregame walkthrough Wednesday. “A Division II team or anyone can come in here and give you just as good of a competition than other school if you aren’t focused.

“Our offense needs to come out gunning early. We had some question marks heading into the opener last year, and we really didn’t get things worked out until the North Dakota State game. We need our offense to go out (today) and put up good numbers and get rolling early.”

It’s been hard for the Bearkats to get a feel for the Tigers heading into today’s game. The players and coaches have been watching tape, but they aren’t sure exactly what East Central Oklahoma brings to the table personnelwise.

“We really don’t know much about them,” SHSU head coach Todd Whitten said. “They have 20-something guys that transferred in and have never played for them before. We do know that they changed defenses from a 4-3 to a 3-4, so we are going to have to adjust to that. That is going to be the key offensively.”

The Tigers do have a talented young quarterback in junior Marcus Johnson, who was recently selected as the Lone Star Conference North Division preseason offensive player of the year.

As a sophomore in 2007, Johnson set several school records on his way to passing for 2,508 yards and 14 touchdowns. He was named the LSC North Back and Player of the Year despite the fact that East Central went 2-9 and 0-5 in league play.

“The film we have seen, they like to throw the ball a lot, so we are expecting to see 40 or 50 passes,” Smith added. “Their quarterback is very mobile, and we have to get out there and stay in our lanes on the pass rush to contain him. The emphasis is not letting him get out of the pocket because he is better at making plays on the run that when he is standing stationary.”

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