Towson Routs Hampton 44-13 for First Win of 2026 as Jacob Davis Accounts for Three Touchdowns

Eight games, eight losses, and five of them by a single score. If any team in the Coastal Athletic Association had earned a break from the football gods, it was Towson. On Halloween, the Tigers stopped waiting for one and took it themselves.

Towson beat Hampton 44-13 on Saturday, Oct. 31, at home in Towson, Md., for its first win of the 2026 season. The Tigers improved to 1-8 overall and 1-4 in CAA play. Hampton dropped to 1-8 and 0-5 in the league.

The final margin was no fluke. Towson piled up 591 total yards, 334 of them on the ground, ran 40 times at 8.4 yards per carry and never trailed.

Finally, a fast start

Towson's season has been full of late heartbreak: a 21-18 loss to Maine in the opener, 33-28 at Delaware State, a 41-40 thriller at Monmouth, 31-24 to Stony Brook and 24-20 at Campbell. A team in that spot needs an early lead it can breathe with, and it got one.

The Tigers opened with a 12-play drive that ended in a 33-yard Max Young field goal. Hampton's answer went nowhere, and Towson followed with a 10-play, 76-yard march. Jacob Davis hit Jacob Zollar for 27 yards to get it rolling, and Tristen Kenan finished it with a 1-yard touchdown run late in the first quarter. It was 10-0, and Hampton had lost 10 yards on a sack on its next possession.

The second quarter was the Davis show. The freshman quarterback, who took over the job in October after Andrew Indorf was ruled out indefinitely, found Zollar for a 4-yard touchdown to cap a nine-play, 78-yard drive. Then Davis dropped a 43-yard touchdown pass to Mason Cunningham, and Towson led 23-0 with two minutes left in the half.

Hampton strikes back, briefly

Hampton needed one snap to respond. Sejhe Jackson threw a 72-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Smith on the very next play from scrimmage, the longest play of the day for the Pirates. Towson blocked the extra point, which felt minor at the time and mattered less later.

It also did not slow the Tigers down. Davis took them 55 yards in five plays in the final 1:36 and scored himself on a 16-yard run with 7 seconds left. Towson took a 30-6 lead to the locker room.

The turning point: answering the answer

If there was a moment for Hampton to make this interesting, it came right after halftime. The Pirates went 75 yards in six plays to open the third quarter, with a 41-yard completion to Damon Short setting up a 25-yard touchdown pass from Xavier Brookins to Short. It was 30-13 with 11:20 left in the third.

For a team that has lost so many close games, that is exactly the kind of moment that has gone wrong for Towson this year. This time, it went right. The Tigers answered with a 10-play, 71-yard drive that took 4:50 off the clock, and Kemarrion Battles punched it in from 2 yards out. At 37-13, the door was shut.

Hampton caught a break later in the quarter when a Tre'Von Taylor fumble that Towson scooped and returned for a touchdown was overturned on review. Towson got its points anyway. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Battles took a handoff 91 yards up the middle for a touchdown. It was 44-13, and the only question left was how the Towson sideline would celebrate.

Hampton drove into Towson territory twice more in the fourth quarter, reaching the Towson 21 on one possession, but both drives ended on fourth down.

The players who made it happen

Davis was terrific. The freshman completed 19 of 26 passes for 216 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions, and added 109 rushing yards and a score on 14 carries. That is the kind of dual-threat line that changes how a defense has to play, and Hampton never found an answer. Towson coach Pete Shinnick said after the Stony Brook loss in October that Davis "played amazing," per The Towerlight. This was better.

Battles only needed four carries to make his mark, running for 99 yards and two touchdowns, the 91-yarder included. Kenan added 93 yards and a score on 11 carries. Zollar caught five passes for 47 yards and a touchdown, Cunningham had three for 55 and a score, and Jarvis Jones caught four for 47. Backup quarterback Myles Fulton went 4 of 4 for 41 yards in relief.

For Hampton, Short was the bright spot with four catches for 82 yards and a touchdown, and Smith turned two catches into 84 yards and a score. Brookins, the true freshman who made his first career start a week earlier, completed 9 of 17 passes for 110 yards and a touchdown. Gracen Goldsmith led the Pirates with 51 rushing yards. On defense, Qwae Willis made 11 tackles and Cole Smith had nine tackles and a sack.

Numbers that matter

The rushing gap was the game. Towson ran for 334 yards. Hampton ran for 47 on 23 carries, an average of 2 yards per attempt. That kind of imbalance means one team can do whatever it wants and the other has to be perfect, and Hampton was not.

Towson won the first-down battle 27 to 12, held the ball for 35:23 and did not turn it over. Hampton converted just 3 of 12 third downs and 1 of 3 fourth downs. The Tigers did commit seven penalties for 65 yards, but they could afford them. The Towson defense deserves its share of the credit, too. Of Hampton's 282 total yards, 113 came on two completions, the 72-yard touchdown to Smith and the 41-yarder to Short. Outside of those two snaps, the Pirates had very little room to work. The full numbers are in the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Towson, this is about more than one win. Shinnick's team has been competitive for most of the season without results to show for it, and the Tigers had come up short in a string of one-score games. Saturday was proof the pieces can come together for four quarters. With Davis settling in at quarterback and a run game this deep, the final stretch of the schedule looks a lot less daunting. Three different Tigers ran for touchdowns, Battles, Kenan and Davis himself, and the offense showed it can hit from anywhere on the field. Towson visits Sacred Heart on Nov. 7, then Rhode Island on Nov. 14, before closing at home against Elon on Nov. 21.

For Hampton, it is another tough week in Van Malone's first season. A week ago, the Pirates were tied with Monmouth midway through the second quarter at home before Monmouth pulled away 49-13, and the second-half problems showed up again here. Hampton has young quarterbacks and a few playmakers in Short and Smith, but it has to find a way to run the ball and stop the run. The Pirates visit Elon on Nov. 7.

The last word

Every losing streak ends with somebody's first win, and Towson made sure this one did not come down to a final possession. After a season of 40-41s and 24-31s and 20-24s, the Tigers finally got to enjoy a fourth quarter.

Hampton will look at the film and see a team that hung around for one drive in the third quarter. Towson will look at the film and see what this team was supposed to look like all along.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, The Towerlight, and Monmouth Athletics. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Towson University (file photo).