“Hendrix is an upcoming program,” said HPU first-year head coach Jason Bachtel. “They’re not an established program but they’ve started to win pretty often over the last two to three years and played for a conference championship in the spring. They’re going to give us a good battle and a good test, we just don’t know much about them not being in that conference, them being an Arkansas school and this being the first meeting in school history. We respect what they’ve done and we know we’re going to get a battle, and I think it’s going to be a great ball game in a great stadium with a great atmosphere.”
Hendrix opened its season with a 49-33 loss to Wisconsin-River Falls last week, a game in which the Warriors trailed 35-6 at halftime. Hendrick finished with 380 yards – 285 passing and 95 rushing – and two turnovers while allowing 514 yards – 296 on the ground and 218 through the air – with no takeaways.
Quarterback Jacob Wood completed 23 of 42 passes for 272 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions, while also rushing for a team-high 62 yards and a score. Quentin Tolbert chipped in 38 yards rushing and a touchdown. Leading receivers included Chris Childress (9-150, 2 TDs), Colton Phillips (5-60), and Christian Gadison (4-40, TD).
Defensive standouts included Mitchell Johnson (13 tackles, 1.5 for loss), Jacob Bremmon (11 tackles, 1 for loss), and Tanner Barrett (10 tackles).
“Their quarterback is most likely out for the season with an injury,” Bachtel said. “They’ve got some up and coming freshman quarterbacks that are going to do OK, and they’ve got some skill kids on offense that are pretty good as well. Defensively they return nine of their 11 starters from the spring. They’re going to be a good ball team to go up against to see where we’re at as a program.”
Howard Payne is coming off a 42-36 conference win at McMurry where the Yellow Jackets finished with 560 yards but allowed 545, including 461 passing. The Yellow Jackets never trailed, but also labored in their efforts to deliver a knockout blow to McMurry as they did the week prior to Texas Lutheran.
“Obviously a win is a win and you want to stack wins on top of each other, “ Bachtel said. “We played sloppy at times and we played great at times on both sides. We’ve got a lot of correction and clean up to do over the next few weeks going back into the conference schedule, so we need to get some stuff done there, but overall we’re excited about the win and being 2-0 and sitting on top of the conference.”
The Yellow Jackets head into Saturday’s contest averaging 42.5 points and 599.5 yards – 390.5 passing and 209 rushing – per game.
Quarterback Landon McKinney has completed 33 of 56 passes for 662 yards with seven touchdowns and one interception, while 14 Yellow Jackets have caught passes led by All-American Jake Parker (10-272, 3 TDs), Otis Lanier (4-81, TD), Max McCuiston (3-77, TD), Hunter Cheek (3-50, TD), Collyn Shipley (3-44), Javonte Russell (3-39), Selah Smith (3-23, TD), and Casey Dufner (2-49, 2 TDs)
On the ground, Tauren Bradley ranks second in the ASC with 224 yards rushing and a touchdown while
Stephen Willis has chipped in 157 yards, which is sixth-best amongst backs in the conference.
“The biggest thing that we have to see is more consistency,” Bachtel said of the offense. “If you look back at Texas Lutheran we threw it well but we didn’t run it really well. We came back and put a emphasis on running the ball against McMurry and ran it well and didn’t throw it quite as well, so we need to become more consistent there. We’ve also got to clean up snap issues. We had three snaps that could have cost us big time against McMurry and four or five against TLU. We also had a crucial turnover on the 1 yard line going into half that could have been the dagger in McMurry.”
Defensively, the Yellow Jackets are yielding 26.5 points and 455 yards – 298.5 passing and 156.5 rushing – per contest, with five takeaways.
Standouts thus far include Peyton Lowe (17 tackles), Kyle Bell (10 tackles) , Dai’Shawn Fisher (10 tackles), Jarrett Brown (9 tackles), and James Jakubowski (9 tackles)
“The biggest thing we need to correct is the back end of the defense right now. We gave up a ton of yards,” Bachtel said. “We had some crucial turnovers at key points in the ball game that came at the right time. We tackled well, established the line of scrimmage and prevented them from running the ball. We did a better job from Game 1 to Game 2 in regards to tackling, but the secondary has to be cleaned up quite a bit.”
Bachtel would also like to see significant special teams improvement Saturday night as well.
“Kicking and punting is a concern right now,” Batchtel said. “We’re averaging around 28 to 30 yards per punt and in this league we have to be able to flip the field. In the kicking game we had several balls kicked out of bounds that gave them a short field. Those are key things that have to be addressed and areas that are being addressed and we’ll clean them up and be ready to go.”
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AMERICAN SOUTHWEST CONFERENCE
Conference Overall
Howard Payne 2 0 2 0
Hardin-Simmons 1 0 2 0
Mary Hardin-Baylor 1 0 2 0
Southwestern 1 0 1 1
Texas Lutheran 1 1 1 1
Belhaven 0 1 1 1
East Texas Baptist 0 1 1 1
Austin College 0 1 0 1
McMurry 0 1 0 1
Sul Ross 0 1 0 1
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Week 2 Games
Howard Payne 42, McMurry 36
Texas Lutheran 41, Austin College 7
Hardin-Simmons 27, Sul Ross 0
Mary Hardin-Baylor 34, East Texas Baptist 14
Southwestern 34, Belhaven 27
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Week 3 Games
Howard Payne vs. Hendrix (at Prosper)
Trinity at Texas Lutheran
Belhaven at Hardin-Simmons
Sul Ross at Austin College
McMurry at East Texas Baptist
Mary Hardin-Baylor at Southwestern