GAME STATISTICS

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Third-ranked and unbeaten, Sam Houston State looked every bit the part of the Southland Conference's outright football champion Saturday while whipping visiting Northwestern State 43-17.

Tim Flanders and Richard Sincere each scored two touchdowns while Brian Bell threw for a pair of scores for the Bearkats. Meanwhile, the Demons' offense couldn't find the end zone against a speedy Sam Houston defense until D.J. Palmer rammed 1 yard to score with 5:11 remaining.

That tally provided the second of two positive footnotes for NSU. The Demons' 17 points are the second-most allowed by Sam Houston, who has held all of their other eight FCS foes to 14 points or less, and all but one to just one TD.  Three of the Demons' total came from junior kicker John Shaughnessy, who extended his school record for consecutive field goals made to 12 with a 34-yarder midway through the third period.

The outcome dropped NSU to 5-5 overall, 3-3 in the SLC,  hoping to post a winning season next Saturday afternoon at home against old rival Stephen F. Austin.

The Bearkats claimed their first outright Southland football title in 24 years of conference membership while rising to 10-0 overall and completing their league slate at 7-0. They play a non-conference game at Texas State next week, then await their FCS playoff assignment, likely a first-round bye into a home game.

“What a very good, very solid, very explosive football team,” said Demons' coach Bradley Dale Peveto. “What you saw today is what we've seen on every game tape. They are sound in every phase of the game. They hit you with big plays. They are very, very good defensively, especially against the run. They had turned it over only six times all year coming into today, so that tells you how sound they are.”

Even though the Demons recovered two fumbles, they couldn't slow down Sam Houston's running game. Flanders became the first back to run for 100 yards against NSU with 145 on 20 carries, and his teammates added 98 more on the ground. Bell threw for 200 yards on 10 of 14 aim. Sincere caught three passes for 102 yards and ran for 75 more on 11 tries.

Meanwhile, the Demons managed to run for only 64 yards against the nation's No. 1-ranked rush defense, which was allowing an average of just 55.8.

For the second straight week, NSU was burned for three third-quarter touchdowns as Sam Houston more than doubled a 16-point halftime advantage and turned the contest into a blowout.

The Bearkats didn't dominate the first half except on the scoreboard, where a 23-7 lead didn't reflect the modest 189-137 yardage advantage by SHSU.

“We helped them with our turnovers. They scored on one, got a field goal off another, and without those it's a 13-7 game at halftime,” said Peveto. “The other major failure for us was coverage breakdowns that allowed them to hit big plays in the passing game. Their quarterback kept plays alive and while he was scrambling we didn't keep tabs on every receiver, and that really cost us.”

A 35-yard touchdown catch and run by Flanders, with Bell rolling right, evading tacklers and looking back across the field to find Flanders by himself, on Sam Houston's first series after halftime all but sealed the outcome.

NSU's first-half points came on defense, when a bad shotgun snap sailed over Bell's head into the end zone where Demons' tackle Anthony Gilbert won a battle for the ball. That came 4:16 before halftime.

The Bearkats scored on the game's sixth play, a 36-yard Sincere bolt up the middle, to cap an 82-yard drive. They tallied on the first play of the second quarter when Flanders finished an 80-yard march with a 15-yard sweep to go up 13-0.

Despite gaining only 27 yards in the second period, the Bearkats scored 16 points.

A fumble recovery set up Sam Houston at the NSU 27 and netted a 38-yard Craig Alaniz field goal to make it 16-0. The spread expanded to 23-0 when Darnell Taylor snagged a deflected pass and returned the interception 23 yards for a touchdown 6:04 before the half.