Texas A&M-Commerce goes to 3-0 in conference play with homecoming win
Oct. 24—COMMERCE — Even though they'd gone 46-7 over their last seven football seasons in Lone Star Conference play and won a national championship in 2017, the Texas A&M University-Commerce Lions were picked to finish sixth in the Southland Conference this inaugural season.
That low ranking didn't set well with the Lions and their head coach David Bailiff.
"That's part of our motivation," he said. "You know when you're picked almost last that puts a fire in your belly. You want to prove people wrong. Not prove them right. I think it gave us a little more incentive to be where we are today."
Where the 5-2 Lions are now is tied with Northwestern State of Louisiana for first place in the Southland at 3-0 after A&M-Commerce whipped Houston Christian 31-3 in the Lions' homecoming game on Saturday.
A&M-Commerce's defense limited the 2-5 Huskies to only 203 total yards in 64 plays and scored a touchdown when linebacker Mike Noble returned an interception 32 yards.
"Once again I thought the defense was outstanding today," said Bailiff.
Meanwhile, the Lions' offense balanced 166 yards rushing with 209 yards passing. Quarterback Eric Rodriguez was 17-of-30 passing, including a 15-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Andrew Armstrong, his 12th TD reception of the season. Armstrong, who is on the Walter Payton Award watch list, finished with six catches for 102 yards.
Cameron Nellor, in at quarterback in the goal-line package, ran for a 6-yard touchdown and national 100-meter champion J.T. Smith dashed for a 14-yard touchdown.
Emmanuel Adagbon also booted a 49-yard field goal for the Lions, aided by a wind that gusted up to 40 mph.
"The wind was absolutely brutal," said Bailiff. "And it didn't matter if you were going into it or you had it. It was still hard on those quarterbacks.
"At first I thought Eric was trying to overpower it in the second quarter when we we're going with the wind. And just was proud that he finally settled in, in the second half, scored those 17 points in the third quarter and that's when we started to pull away. We wanted to get that wind in the third quarter to try to pull away and that's what we did."
The punters on both teams had some short punts into the wind and long ones with it. A&M-Commerce punter Mitchell McGarry, who averaged 34.5 yards on 10 punts, pinned the Huskies back at their 1-yard line with a 38-yard coffin-corner kick.
The Lion defense held and then the Huskies' Brady Buell, who boomed a 67-yarder with the wind, shanked an 11-yarder into the wind. That set the Lions up at the Huskies' 15 for A&M-Commerce's first touchdown drive.
The Lions also overcame 16 penalties for 107 yards.
"One of our goals is to be the hardest-working, smartest football team in the Southland Conference," said Bailiff. "I love the win. I'm proud of these guys. But we've got a lot of work to do to get back on track from a discipline standpoint."
