34-0 Hornet win. The Hornets took care of an inferior opponent on the road to move to 2-2 on the season. The Hornets drove for a field goal on the first possession of the game but things got sloppy from there as the struggles in the red zone continued. Ultimately the Hornets would wear down the Lions defense and break things open at the end of the 1st half as the Hornets would rack up 414 total yards in the game. The Hornets rotated a lot of bench players throughout the game and emptied the benches in the 4th quarter.
Carson Conklin (13/22, 154 yds, 2 TD) took a while to find his stride, but he found Jared Gipson (4 rec, 85 yds, 1 TD) late in the 2nd quarter to put this game away. Conklin also hit Elijah Tau-Tolliver (20 car, 127 yds, 3 rec, 23 yds 1 TD) on a wheel route for a touchdown early in the 3rd quarter. On the ground, the Hornets rolled up 260 rushing yards behind another stellar performance by ETT. Ezra Moleni (8 car, 27 yds, 1 TD) pounded in a touchdown from the goalline to cap the Hornet scoring in the 3rd quarter and Michael Johnson (9 car, 70 yds) got back into action and pounded the ball in garbage time. The Hornet offensive line took care of business yet again but did allow a sack for the first time since week 1 at SJSU.
On the other side of the ball, the Hornet defense bottled up the Lions offense and held their running game to 26 yards on 25 carries and 171 yards through the air while sacking the quarterback 6 times and forcing 3 interceptions and recovering a fumble. In the 2nd quarter, the game turned on a pick six by Elias Mullican (2 tak, 2 INT) as the Hornet defense stifled TAMU-C on the night. The shutout included 2 stops in the red zone including a goal line stand in the 4th quarter. Lots of players saw action on this side of the ball as Will Leota (5 tak, 0.5 TFL) led the team in tackles. Nakian Jackson (4 tak, 1.5 TFL, 1 sac) continued to make his presence known with Will Schalde (3 tak, 1.5 TFL, 1.5 sac) leading the Hornets in sacks. Murvin Kenion III (3 tak, 1 INT) also joined the turnover party with a pick in the 3rd quarter. The Hornet defense has yet to allow points against an FCS opponent this year.
The special teams gave up some big returns as the Lions averaged almost 30 yards a return. Zach Schreiner (2/2 FG, 4/4 PAT) was perfect on the night with a long of 37 yards.
Here are my takeaways from the game:
- Awful broadcasting production by the Lions. This justified my decision to forgo joining one of the various watch party locations for this game. I knew it was going to be bad from the painful decision to zip through their Grambling game, but this game was absolutely brutal.
- Hornet offense wasn’t crisp early on in the passing game, but eventually found its stride. The play calling was un-imaginative but it didn’t need to be anything special against a bad team like the Lions.
- Red zone offense continues to sputter. Only 2 touchdowns in 5 trips inside the red zone isn’t going to get it done against the better teams in the BSC.
- Conklin earned his first road win as a starter of his career. It wasn't crisp but it got the job done.
- Another dominating performance by the Hornet defense. I was expecting this kind of a performance against an offense as bad as the Lions, the forced turnovers was a nice cherry on top.
- A lot of backup and reserve players saw action. The defensive side saw a lot of players rotated in throughout the game and the offense emptied the bench in the 4th quarter.
Good dominating performance by the Hornets on the road. There are still some concerns on the offensive side, especially in the red zone, but the Hornets were never going to lose this game given the disparity in talent between the two rosters. Hornets start Big Sky play in Flagstaff next week, it starts mattering a lot more from this point on.
Stingers Up!
