What to Watch: Sam Houston



It's finally Friday but Sunday somehow still feels like a week away.  As the Jackrabbit Illustrated team got together to decide on the "What to Watch" we had our first moment of truly differing takes of the season.  Let's try to lay it out the best we can.

1. Make the Bearkats Drive the Field

The Jackrabbit defense plays tough physical defense that is predicated on the bend but don't break philosophy.  The Bearkat offense is quick strike and doesn't seem to really worry about the time of possession. The Bearkats truly can be electric on offense and that is why the Jackrabbit defense must make them drive the field in order to score.  There cannot be any huge momentum changing 50+ yard touchdowns.  This also means sound tackling on short and intermediate routes.  Keep the 8 yard completion as an 8 yard completion.  Make them drive the field and see if they can play with out making a mistake for 80 yards.

2. Contain Schmid

Like most great quarterbacks, you can't really count on completely stopping Eric Schmid.  He is going to get his yards through the air and on the ground.  The important thing to do is to try your best to keep him in the pocket, collapse the pocket from the inside out, and when you get a hand on him, grab ahold and hang on for your teammates.  Again, we realize that a player of his caliber is going to make some plays but the Jacks have to try and contain him the best they can while still making him uncomfortable from a strong and consistent pass rush.   

3. Win Special Teams

The Jackrabbits have played solid special teams for much of the year.  We've asked them to play even on special teams recently.  This week, we would like to see them outright "win" the special teams battle.  Block a kick/punt, force a turnover, limit the return yardage from the electric #12 Jequez Ezzard, break off a big return of our own and make the big kick.  In games where the two teams are as evenly matched as SDSU and SHSU special teams can be the deciding factor.

4. Let the #605Hogs Eat

The Sam Houston front 7 is pretty dang impressive.  Really, one could say the front 9 because the safties spend so much time around the line of scrimmage because of the Bearkat commitment to stopping the run. A specific matchup to watch is Wes Genant vs. the Sam Houston noseguard, #95 Joseph Wallace (6-1, 300).  If Wes, with the help of the guards, can neutralize Wallace I think the Jacks can still run the ball.  Wallace is the key though.  He has to be blocked and moved out of the way.  As we have seen throughout the year, the run game sets up the pass game.  The offensive line has passed every test this season.  We'll see if they can do it again.

5. Just Win Baby

This one is a carry over from last week.  If the other 4 things on this list don't happen and the Jacks somehow still manage to win, that is all that matters!  Again, style points don't matter, the voters don't matter.  All that matters is the final score on the scoreboard.  So far the Jacks have found a way to win every game except one and we truly believe this team can come home with the championship trophy.  This is the Jackrabbit's time.


Go Jacks!

Ben, Brendan, Chad, Dallas, Kyle, and Matt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jackrabbit Football All-Decade Team

Image
Yes, we are well into the new year/decade but our debate has been fierce in creating an All-Decade Jackrabbit football team.  The challenges of creating this team were what to do with the players at the beginning and the end of the decade who may only have a year or two of stats to go on or what do we do with those players who only splashed for one year?  Further complicating matters was the consistent improvement of the Jackrabbit team as a whole and the level of competition they are facing week in and week out.  So with all of those factors, the Splitting Hares Podcast team of Ben Pierson, Brendan Luedtke, Kyle Sheehan, and Dallas Clarksean created our list of who the team should be.  All are welcome to their opinions!  Special thanks to Mitchell McLain who keeps an unbelievable database of Jackrabbit football statistics and information.  Offense Quarterback Taryn Christion (2015-2018) 44 games started, 59.70% completion rate, 11,535 yar...
Read more

What's Cookin': Dessert

Image
Alright, another year of Jackrabbit football is upon us. We are celebrating at Jackrabbit Illustrated, this our 5th season covering the team.  The players who we first covered as freshmen are now redshirt seniors. We hope you are as excited as us for this upcoming season. Chef Tim, a culinary instructor at Mitchell Tech and contributing writer, has some fun recipes for you this season.  He has committed to doing one a week. I have nothing but faith that he will get them turned in! We start the season celebrating with celebrations. Here are some fun baked goods that will lead to the healthy start to the season; Cherry-Chocolate Chunk Cookies ½ Cup All-Purpose Flour ¼ Cup Quick-Cooking Oats ½ Teaspoon baking Soda Pinch of Salt 2 tbs butter, melted and cooled 1/3 cup brown sugar 1 large egg 1 tsp vanilla Extract 2 oz semisweet chocolate 1/3 cup dried cherries 1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray large baking sheet with nonstick spray. 2) Combine Flour, Oats, baking soda, and s...
Read more

Rants & Raves: LIU

Image
The Jacks won 38-3 on a cold and damp September evening.  The Jacks dominated statistically in nearly every area but it didn't feel like a fully satisfying victory.  How spoiled have we become as Jackrabbit fans? Rave: How about that defense?  The argument could be made that they have only surrendered 17 points in 2 games.  Pretty impressive.  For most of the night Saturday LIU was completely overwhelmed by the size and speed of the Jackrabbit defense.  LIU managed only 123 yards of total offense.  The performance was phenominal, even against a transitioning FCS opponent. I'll highlight some of the invidual performances later. Rant: Adult fans... enough said.  This writer is tired of the apathy and excuses. Rave: Students!  Great job showing up, being loud, and impacting the game.  That was great! Rave: The true freshmen really showed out.  Quinton Hicks impacted the game from his first snap.  Diamond Evans played w...
Read more