Fire record 635 yards on offense, and five sacks on defense
What a difference a week makes.
An offense that struggled last week at Point turned things around in a big way
in the Southeastern University home opener, recording 635 yards in a 54-15 win
over Georgetown College Saturday night.
Big plays were a big key, recording 11 plays of 20+ yards.
“One of the things we stressed this week was that we weren’t just trying
to beat a football team, we were trying to beat a program and a hall of fame
coach,” said coach Keith
Barefield. “We had to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepare
for and our guys came out and played tonight.”
Sophomore quarterback Cooper
Jones had a career day, passing for 322 yards and four touchdowns and
was only sacked once.
“Everything clicked. We got started in the running game, the offensive
line had a great push off the ball and opened up things for us in the passing
game,” said Jones. “We installed a lot of things in this game and I
feel like our practices were really good.”
Jones found three different receivers for touchdowns, starting with Evan Beal with
10:24 left in the first quarter to put the Fire up 7-0.
With 4:45 left in the second, Jones hit Marquavis Myers for
a 22-yard strike on third down to make it 14-0 at the break.
Bryan Bell led a
backfield that compiled 305 yards and three scores. Bell rushed for 190 on 12
carries. Senior Lorine
Parker found the endzone twice on runs of three and 20 yards.
In the third quarter, the Fire took it to another level, getting a 28-yard TD
pass from Jones to Wendell Harris, and a 20-yard run by Lorine Parker to go
up 34-8. The defense also got involved with a 20 yard interception return for
touchdown by Tyrail
Davis.
“We had a few things in the first half we’d like to have back, we felt
like we probably could have had a couple more scores, but went in at halftime
and made some adjustments and our guys came out determined to make an
impact,” said Barefield.
To start the fourth quarter, the Fire held a 41-8 lead.
Eddie Jackson and Tez Watts each had
six total stops. Freshman Loobert Denelus had
four tackles, 2.5 for loss, and was in on two of SEU’s five sacks.
“Our defensive coaches did a tremendous job,” said Barefield.
“There are a lot of things that Georgetown does that are a little bit
unconventional that you don’t necessarily see at first look, but when you start
looking at what they do, it’s very intricate and our guys work hard this week
and were ready.”
The GC offense was held to 331 total yards with just 41 rushing yards on 34
attempts.
Southeastern will host Campbellsville in its final non-division game on
September 28th at 7 p.m.