football
Sep 26, 2024 1:54 p.m

Game 5 • Houston • NRG Stadium
Sam Houston (3-1, 1-0 CUSA) vs. Texas State (2-1, 0-0 SBC)
Saturday, September 28th • 2:00 p.m

TV: ESPN+ (Randy McIlvoy, John Harris)
RADIO: BSN (Carlos Zimmerman, Brian Adams); Sirius XM 984
HOW TO FOLLOW: Live Stats • @BearkatsFB on X
GAME NOTES: Sam Houston • Texas State
Series against the Bobcats: Texas State leads 50-37-5

HOUSTON – A week after going 1-0 in Conference USA, the Sam Houston Bearkats will be eliminated from the conference one final time this year when they travel back to NRG Stadium to face Texas State on Saturday.

Kick-off of Saturday's competition is scheduled for 2 p.m. at NRG Stadium. The show airs on ESPN+ with Randy McIlvoy and John Harris. The game can be heard online on the Bearkat Sports Network, the Bearkat Athletics app and Sirius XM 984, with Carlos Zimmermann and Brian Adams heard from the radio booth.

OLD SCHOOL KATFIGHT WILL BE RENEWED AT NRG STADIUM
– Sam Houston is 18-27-1 all-time in City of Houston games, including 1-0 this year after opening the year with a win at Rice

– The Kats posted home attendance numbers of 15,134 and 13,059 respectively over the last two weeks, both crowds that rank in the top five all-time at SHSU. The total of 28,193 in consecutive weeks is the highest number in Bearkat history for consecutive home games

– Sam Houston is averaging 32.0 points per game in his three wins with all G5 teams

— Sam Houston will wear another set of retro decals on his helmets Saturday, with Bearkats in arched white font with a white stripe down the middle of the orange hats. The arched lettering was originally worn on a dark blue helmet from 1989 to 1993 before Sam Houston switched to orange helmets in 1994. The mark remained on the side of the hats throughout the 1996 season, while the orange headgear remains to this day

HISTORY OF THE SERIES
– Sam Houston and Texas State meet for the 93rd time in series history on Saturday in Houston

– On Saturday, the Bearkats and Bobcats meet on the gridiron for the first time since 2011, when both were members of the Southland Conference. Texas State made the jump to the FBS for the 2012 season

– When the series ended after the 2011 season, Texas State was Sam Houston's most-played opponent in program history with 92 meetings; Since then, the Kats have played Piney Woods rival Stephen F. Austin ten times, making the series with the Lumberjacks the Kats' most played series at 96 meetings

– It won’t be the first time the Bearkats and Bobcats meet in Houston. The team has another meeting in the Bayou City, with this game coming in 1982 when the Bobcats (then Southwest Texas) earned a 52-21 victory at the Astrodome

SAM HOUSTON >> TEXAS STATE CONNECTIONS
– There are a lot of connections between the squads, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Bearkat linebacker Issiah Nixon is one of them, as he played his first two seasons for the Bobcats before moving to Sam Houston for the 2023 season

– Texas State’s Kam Washington will also face his former team. The defensive lineman was a Bearkat in 2022, the first year of Sam Houston's move to the FBS. He was named WAC Freshman of the Year that season

– Washington was reunited with Mike O'Guin, the Bobcats' current defensive line coach, in San Marcos. Before joining the TXST team in 2023, he coached the defensive line in Huntsville in 2021 and 2022

QUICK STRIKES FROM WIN against NM STATE
– The Kats finished the game with 280 yards on the ground and now have 537 yards rushing in their last two games. It's the first time since 2021 that the Bearkats have rushed for more than 200 yards in consecutive games

– Sam Houston has now averaged 238.3 yards per game on the ground in its three wins

– Hunter Watson finished the game with 116 yards rushing, including two touchdowns. He is just the second Bearkat quarterback since 2013 to have a 100-yard rushing game, the other being a backup Trapper Pannell in the 2022 season finale against Southern Utah, ending the Kats' first transition season to the FBS

– Watson ranks second in rushing among quarterbacks in CUSA, averaging 58.3 yards per game on the ground. Only Tyler Huff (Jax State) has a better average, ranking second in the league with 67.3 rushing yards per game

– Ife Adeyi has now caught a pass in 28 consecutive games as a teammate Noah Smith caught a pass 23 times in a row

– The Kats defense held NMSU to just 152 yards of offense, including 74 through the air and 78 on the ground. It is the first time since the 2013 season opener against HBU that the Kats have held an opponent under 100 rushing and passing yards in the same game and held the Huskies to 45 passing and 45 rushing yards in this game

– Isaiah Cash And Caleb Weaver Both had interceptions against NM State, marking the 10th straight game in which the Sam Houston defense caused a turnover