During a season where week-to-week improvement is of the utmost importance for Southern Arkansas, sustainability is one thing first-year Coach Brad Smiley has branded as a certain must for his Muleriders.
"Coming off the Harding game, our kids played pretty well," he said of his team's 37-17 defeat on Sept. 17. "There were two things that we thought was the difference in that ballgame, and they were third downs and the red zone.
"Where we were 1 of 3 in the red zone in that game, Harding was 5 for 5. We were pretty good on third downs, going 7 for 12, but they were even better at 11 for 12. We put a premium on those things in practice last week." Those sessions did a lot for SAU (2-2, 2-2 Great American Conference), which converted 8 of 13 third-down chances and were 3 of 3 inside the 20 during its 28-24 upset of Henderson State last week.
Incidentally, all four of the Muleriders' touchdowns in the game came on third down.
"Our offense was good again on third downs, and we capitalized whenever we were deep in [Henderson State] territory," Smiley said. "And then defensively, we held them to just 30% on third downs and 1 of 3 in the red zone. So those were two big points of emphasis that I thought we did a very good job of handling, which led us to picking up a big win."
Today's games
No. 4 Ouachita Baptist at Northwestern Oklahoma State in Alva, OK (2 p.m.)
Arkansas-Monticello at Southwestern Oklahoma State (2 p.m.)
Southeastern Oklahoma State at Henderson State (2 p.m.)
Southern Nazarene at Arkansas Tech (2 p.m.)
Oklahoma Baptist at No. 8 Harding leads (2 p.m.)
GAC standings
1. No. 4 Ouachita Baptist (4-0)
2. No. 8 Harding (3-1)
3. Henderson State (3-1)
4. Arkansas-Monticello (3-1)
5. East Central (2-2)
6. Southeastern Oklahoma (2-2)
7. Southern Arkansas (2-2)
8. Southwestern Oklahoma (2-2)
9. Arkansas Tech (1-3) 1-3
10. Oklahoma Baptist (1-3)
11. Southern Nazarene (1-3)
12. Northwestern Oklahoma (0-4)