By Turner Dawson
As the 2010 college football season gets underway on September 4, the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks will have their hands full as the Division 1-Football Championship Series team from the Southland Conference comes to Kyle Field to take on the Division 1-Football Bowl Series Texas A&M Aggies of the Big 12.
The Lumberjacks are coming into this season with high hopes. After winning their third Southland Conference title last season and their first since 1999, they have been picked by both the coaches and the media to repeat as champions.
Head coach J.C. Harper is looking for another big year with 16 starters returning to a team that went 10-3 last season and 6-1 in conference.
Offense
The Lumberjacks are lead on offense by their senior quarterback Jeremy Moses. Moses was the conference’s Co-Player of the Year last season and is on this season’s watch list for the Walter Payton Award.
Moses is already SFA’s all-time leader in completions, touchdown passes, passing yards and total offense. He is on pace to become the Southland’s all-time leader in all four of those categories. He has recorded 18 300-yard passing games, four 400-yard passing games and one 500-yard effort during his career. Needless to say, he will be the player the Aggie defense will be most concerned about.
The Lumberjacks threw the ball more the sixty percent of the time last season and I would expect that percentage to increase as they have lost their two leading rushers from last season.
Sophomore Ramonté Hampton figures to see the bulk of the work at running back after running for 324 yards and 4 touchdowns in his freshman season.
Defense
SFA is definitely known for their offense, but the defense can’t be completely overlooked. The Lumberjacks allowed 346 yards and 23 points per game last season. Those are not very good numbers, but they aren’t necessarily horrible either. Add that to the fact that thus far in their scrimmages in fall camp, the defense has been absolutely dominating the much more highly touted offense. This unit could surprise some people this season.
The defense is lead by their linebackers Devin Ducote and Jabara Williams who were the two leading tacklers off of last season’s team.
Special Teams
The Lumberjacks will be replacing their kicker and it is still unclear who will take that role. It could be filled by returning junior punter Drew Nelson or it also might fall to freshman Thomas Henshaw. Nelson had a solid year last year punting the ball as he averaged 41.5 yards per.
Outlook
This is going to be a very tough game for the Lumberjacks. They have a talented quarterback and a few nice players sprinkled in, but the talent differential in these two teams is astronomical, as it should be between an FBS and FCS team. I expect the Lumberjacks to have some success on offense, perhaps with some missed assignments in the A&M secondary, but I expect the A&M offense to roll over this SFA defense.