The Ouachita Tiger football team has out scored its first two opponents of the season by a combined score of 99-24 and hopes to continue that trend in its first road game of the season.
The Tigers travel to defending national champion and current No. 1 Valdosta State Saturday, and face a difficult game.
The Tigers also traveled to Valdosta State last year. The game was close at halftime, but Valdosta, came out hot in the second half and downed the Tigers on their way to the national championship.
Before the Tigers thought about Valdosta, however, they had to make it through Gulf South Conference foe West Georgia, along with Hurricane Ike. The kickoff was moved from 7 p.m. to noon to dodge the storm, and it worked for the most part.
There was a 45 minute delay in the third quarter, but other than that the game went off without a hitch. Despite the early start the Tigers opened up strong scoring 28 points in the first half and eventually winning 41-17.
Head Coach Todd Knight was very pleased with the improvements his team made last week including protecting the ball well.
“I felt like we protected the ball better, even though we still put it on the ground a time or two,” Knight said. We made a ton of improvement on that and it will be vital for the rest of the year.”
Junior defensive end Brady King agrees with Knight and praised the defense.
“We protected the football well and defensively we had five takeaways,” Knight said. “Winning the turnover margin is one of the most important aspects of the game. When you can do that, you put yourself in a great position to win. And our defense made some huge stops, so it’s good to see that though we might bend, we don’t break.”
Knight was also pleased with the run game. “If we had it to do over again we would probably run the ball more,” he said, as the Tigers racked up 283 yards on the ground, 183 of those coming from junior tailback K.J. Johnson who was named GSC offensive player of the week.
“I’ve never had a back grade as high as he did he graded over 100 percent,” Knight said. “He was telling us in the first half,‘ coach they cannot stop the run. I can run on them.’”
The rain delay came with the Tigers facing a third and two from inside the opponents red zone and the Tigers looked poised to score.
Coach Knight said he did not want to stop, but that safety come first and the administration made the right call.
The Tigers came out after the delay and Johnson picked up the touchdown, his third and last of the day.
Despite the great win the Tigers know they cannot bask in the glory of victory too long.
“We are enthusiastic about getting a chance to show this school, this state, and this nation what kind of team we have,” Knight said. “We know we are going to come out ready to play. [In the next game] The coaches have a great game-plan, and we feel like we have a great opportunity to shake up D-II football.”
Valdosta is also 2-0 picking up wins against No. 21 Newberry and Fort Valley State, which received votes for the top 25.
This will be Valdosta’s GSC opener because last week’s game against SAU was postponed due to Hurricane Ike.
Knight said that Valdosta State has not changed much from last year and that is why they are still No. 1.
King added, “They’re athletic, they’re physical, they’re disciplined and they are well coached. We know they are going to do whatever it takes to stay atop the rankings. Everybody wants their shot to slay Goliath, so we’ll see what happens.”
