Congratulations, Sam Houston State University!
Not only have you been forced to spend the past week dealing with the after-effects of Hurricane Ike – and not only has it been three weeks since you’ve played a real, actual game – but now you get to try to knock off the rust by taking on a 19th-ranked Kansas team on the road.
Should be fun.
“It’s kind of a difficult situation for them,” said Kansas coach Mark Mangino, whose team will take on the Bearkats at 6 p.m. today at Memorial Stadium. “They have been hit hard by Hurricane Ike. … Last I heard, they do not have power out of that area. Whether that’s been restored or not, I do not know.”
Before Ike ran its course last week, it had done a number on the eastern coast of Texas. Games throughout the area were canceled. Towns went without power for significant stretches of time.
And all of this has created a particularly difficult challenge for Sam Houston State.
Following a 58-14 season-opening victory over Division-II East Central University, the Bearkats had a bye week the following week and then had last Saturday’s game against Prairie View A&M canceled because of the hurricane. Which means that, when they take the field against Kansas tonight, it will be the first time Sam Houston State has played in three weeks.
“I think football teams get better playing on Saturday,” Sam Houston State coach Todd Whitten. “We can practice and practice and practice, and certainly that’s important. But until you go out there on Saturday underneath the lights and play against other football teams, I think that’s where you make your most improvement. The fact that we have not played concerns me.”
What also should worry Whitten is his team’s track record against Big 12 opponents. In the past four years, the Bearkats have played Big 12 teams Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech. In those games, they were outscored by an average of 49 points. Things, on paper, do not exactly look tremendous.
If the Bearkats have one advantage, it’s that Kansas has little to work with in terms of preparation. Mangino said Tuesday that the Jayhawks spent the week film from the team’s one and only game this season – “We’ve watched it over and over,” he said – but have seen enough to know that Sam Houston State is not without weapons.
Quarterback Rhett Bomar, for instance, who was kicked off the Oklahoma team in 2006 for accepting improper payments from a Norman car dealership. As a red-shirt freshman with the Sooners in 2005, Bomar led OU to a 19-3 victory over Kansas in Lawrence before being named MVP of the Holiday Bowl later that season.
Kansas players, for their part, spent Tuesday afternoon rattling off the company line(s), despite entering the game the heaviest of favorites. Don’t look ahead. Take things one game at a time. Keep sawin’ wood.
“You can’t look too far ahead at all,” kicker returner Marcus Herford said. “If you look past an opponent, that’s when they sneak up on you. And that’s something that we’ve never done here. So we’re going to get ready for Sam Houston and then go from there.”
