Stephen F. Austin Beats Southeastern Louisiana 45-24 to Reach 8-0 for First Time in Program History

Four minutes and eighteen seconds. That is how long it took Stephen F. Austin to turn a tense, one-score Southland Conference game into a blowout, and to turn a very good start into the best one in program history.

The Lumberjacks scored 21 points over the final 4:18 of the third quarter and pulled away from No. 23 Southeastern Louisiana for a 45-24 win Saturday night at Homer Bryce Stadium in Nacogdoches. A week after matching the best start in school history with a 56-0 demolition at Nicholls, SFA moved to 8-0 and 5-0 in league play. Nobody in purple has ever been here before.

Southeastern, ranked 23rd and 24th in the two FCS polls, fell to 4-4 and 2-3 in the Southland. The Lions had the Jacks on the ropes for about half an hour. Then the third quarter happened.

A fast start, then a fight

SFA, No. 2 in the Stats Perform poll, opened like a team that expected to win by 40. The first possession went 60 yards in six plays, and Jaylen Jenkins went up the middle from eight yards out for a 7-0 lead before two minutes had come off the clock. After a Southeastern punt, quarterback Gavin Rutherford finished an eight-play, 73-yard march with an 8-yard scramble. It was 14-0 with 8:11 still left in the first quarter.

The Lions got their opening from an unlikely place: their punter. Jack Hunter pinned SFA at its own 6, and on the third play of the drive Rutherford put the ball on the turf. Trace Carter fell on it at the 6, and on the final play of the first quarter Kyle Lowe hit Landon Ibieta for a 7-yard touchdown. Suddenly it was 14-7.

SFA answered right away. Rutherford found Clayton Wayland for a 13-yard score on the first drive of the second quarter, and the lead was back to 21-7 with 13:23 left in the half. Southeastern punched back again. Lowe ripped off a 57-yard run, and Elzy Jr. finished the 75-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown run. With 9:55 left before halftime, the No. 2 team in the country led by a single touchdown.

The teams traded punts until Southeastern crept into SFA territory in the final minute. Drew Talley's 52-yard try on the last play of the half hit the crossbar and bounced away, and the Lions went to the locker room down 21-14.

The third quarter that broke it open

Southeastern opened the second half with a three-and-out and still caught a break. Bugs Mortimer muffed Hunter's punt, Jacob Black jumped on it at the SFA 26, and Talley made a 23-yard field goal this time. That cut it to 21-17 with 9:46 left in the third quarter, and for the first time all night the Homer Bryce crowd had a reason to get nervous.

It did not last. After the teams traded punts, Rutherford found Cameron Kelley for an 81-yard touchdown pass, and SFA led 28-17 with 4:18 left in the quarter. That was the first domino.

The second came about a minute later. Lowe threw a pass that was tipped at the line and dropped straight into the arms of A'Amear Walton, who rumbled 20 yards for a pick-six. 35-17 with 3:15 left in the period.

The third followed almost immediately. Lowe's next throw went through the hands of Blake Smith and ricocheted to Chance Sautter at the Southeastern 27. Five plays later, JT Kitna scored from four yards out. It was 42-17 with less than a minute left in the third, and a game that had been a genuine fight was over.

That is the cruel math of facing SFA. Two interceptions, one tipped and one bobbled, handed the Jacks 14 points in a few minutes. Against an undefeated top-two team on its home field, you do not get those back.

The players who decided it

Jenkins was the steadiest force on the field, carrying 17 times for 159 yards, better than nine yards a pop, and scoring the game's first touchdown. SFA did not need to be cute with that kind of production on the ground.

Rutherford was efficient rather than prolific. The quarterback completed 11 of 20 passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns and added 54 rushing yards and a score on eight carries. The early fumble was the only real blemish, and the 81-yard strike to Kelley, more than half of the night's passing yards on one throw, more than made up for it.

Defensively, Walton and Sautter turned the game by simply being where the ball came loose.

For Southeastern, Lowe did a little of everything. The quarterback completed 17 of 31 passes for 203 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, and also led the Lions in rushing with 58 yards on 12 carries, most of it on that 57-yard burst. Smith made up for the deflected pass with a late 73-yard catch-and-run touchdown, catching a short throw and racing untouched to make it 45-24 with 3:18 left.

The Southeastern defense had plenty of bodies around the ball. Jake Dalmado led the team with 10 tackles, and Kenneth Ford Jr. and Carter Hanberry each had nine. Carter and Black each recovered a fumble. That defense kept the Lions alive for 35 minutes. It could not survive two giveaways in quick succession.

The stats that matter

Start with the turnovers, because they shaped everything. Southeastern recovered two SFA fumbles and turned them into 10 points, a touchdown and a field goal. SFA intercepted Lowe twice and turned those into 14 points, one returned for a score and one set up at the Lions' 27. In a game that was 21-17 midway through the third quarter, that four-point swing in the takeaway column was the difference between a nail-biter and a rout.

Then there is the clock. Up 42-17 early in the fourth, SFA put together a 12-play, 79-yard drive that ate nearly nine minutes and ended with a 28-yard Carlos Alvarado field goal. Southeastern had already been turned over on downs in the red zone on its first drive of the quarter. By the time the Lions got the ball back, there were four minutes left and nothing to play for but pride.

What it means

For SFA, the headline writes itself. The defending Southland champions are 8-0 for the first time in school history and 5-0 in the league, and they have now beaten a ranked conference opponent comfortably, which the polls will notice. Nothing about Saturday argues for moving them down from No. 2. Next on the schedule was a Halloween home game against Houston Christian, then trips to Lamar and UTRGV before Northwestern State visits on Nov. 19.

For Southeastern, the picture is murkier. The Lions came in riding the high of a 34-31 homecoming win over then-No. 8 Lamar and left with a .500 record and a 2-3 conference mark. Southeastern was picked second in the Southland preseason poll, and this is not where the Lions expected to be in late October. There is still time to build a playoff case, but no more room for third quarters like this one.

Southeastern's next stop was another trip to east Texas, a Halloween date at East Texas A&M in Commerce billed by the school as the Battle of the Lions. The full Southeastern account of this one is in the Lions' recap (opens in a new tab).

The last word

Southeastern did a lot right on Saturday. It recovered two fumbles, came within a crossbar of a halftime field goal, and had the No. 2 team in the country sweating in the third quarter. It still lost by 21.

That is what SFA has become this season. The Lumberjacks do not need to play a perfect game to win comfortably. They need about four minutes. Every opponent left on the schedule knows that now, and none of them has figured out what to do about it.

Sources: Southeastern Louisiana Athletics recap, Stephen F. Austin Athletics schedule and releases, and the Associated Press. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Southeastern Louisiana University Athletics.