Various football fans throughout the Red River Valley, or Harrisonburg, VA (JMU), or maybe even some in Jacksonville, AL (JSU) will be happy to give you their snickering opinion on the Sam Houston State Bearkats football team.
You see, those fans remember watching a Bearkat team come to their stadium in early/mid December and get absolutely destroyed by 40+ points. They couldn’t stop the run, threw constant interceptions, no push up front, looked disinterested on defense for some reason, etc. Bad optics, to say the least.
Here is the ugly history of SHSU football in the FCS Semi/Quarterfinals that backs up their opinions:
- 2017 – NDSU 55 SHSU 13 (at Fargo)
- 2016 – JMU 65 SHSU 7 (at Harrisonburg)
- 2015 – JSU 62 SHSU 10 (at Jacksonville)
- 2014 – NDSU 35 SHSU 3 (at Fargo)
See why they love to make fun of the Bearkats? Makes sense if you only look at those games, which I remind you, happened deep in the freakin’ FCS playoffs! Most all FCS programs around the country would LOVE to reach the semi-finals but have never even come close.
(p.s. while your snickering about SHSU let’s try and remember what happened to the Jackrabbits last year vs. James Madison in the FCS Semi’s–the mother of all playoff beat downs, 51-16 with 10 J-Rabb turnovers – and it wasn’t even as close as the score indicates as JMU took the 4th quarter off).
Which is the point of this piece. UND isn’t playing the Bearkats in the Alerus Center in December. This game is going down in September in Huntsville, TX at the ultra-friendly confines of Elliot Bowers Stadium, where SHSU is pretty much unbeatable. Yep that’s right, there were other games played before the semi-final debacles.
Let’s take a look at what Sam Houston has done at home recently:
- Won 21 straight home games.
- Beat #7 Richmond to open the 2017 season 48-34
- Beat #16 South Dakota 54-42 in 2017 playoffs
- Beat #18 Kennesaw State 34-27 in 2017 playoffs
- Beat #11 Chattanooga 41-36 in 2016 playoffs
- Beat #17 Southern Utah 42-39 in 2015 playoffs
- Beat #4 McNeese State 34-29 in 2015 playoffs
- Beat Colgate 48-21 in 2015 playoffs
To sum up the above information: SHSU is pretty damn good. They are never #1 or #2, as the playoff losses show. But they are usually in that #4-8 range every year. A spot UND hopes to be in sometime soon.
Can the Hawks head down to Texas and upset the Bearkats? Sure. But it won’t be because the Kats are an overrated program or “soft”. Why is that you say? Because it isn’t mid-December, which is the only time they are labeled as such.
Photo Courtesy of Brian Blalock – Sam Houston State University. http://www.itemonline.com/sports/sam_houston_state_university_bearkats/veteran-lbs-set-up-bearkats-d-for-improvement/article_480fcae0-4e3c-5e8b-b610-40c532718e38.html
