Nicholls Colonels (3-2, 2-1 SLC) at HBU Huskies (2-3, 1-2 SLC)
Saturday, Oct. 15 – 7 p.m.
Husky Stadium – Houston
Audio (Lonnie King/
Jonathan Fleming)
Video: FOX Sports GO (Neal Raphael/Jeff Power/Ashley Prendergast)
Live Stats
Game Notes
Gameday Information
Tickets
HOUSTON - HBU returns to Southland Conference action after a bye week and playing its first-ever FBS opponent two weeks ago when it hosts Nicholls on Homecoming Saturday at 7 p.m. at Husky Stadium. The Legacy Sports Network broadcast will be available on HBUHuskies.com, while the video stream will be available on FOX Sports Go.
The Huskies (2-3, 1-2 SLC) are led by senior quarterback
Tony Dawson, who has completed 67-of-133 passes for 776 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and has added 162 yards and a score on the ground. Junior running back
Terrance Peters has rushed for 372 yards (93.0 yds/game) and four touchdowns. Junior
Isaiah Hall is HBU's leading receiver with 21 catches, while junior
Wesley Lewis leads in receiving yards, catching 11 passes for 217 yards (19.7 yds/rec) and a touchdown. Sophomore
David Racine and junior H-back
Mev Ajdin also have a touchdown reception apiece.
Junior linebacker
Garrett Dolan ranks fourth in the nation and leads the SLC with 12.0 tackles per game (60 total), has a pair of sacks, a fumble forced and a fumble recovery. Junior safety
La'Travien Gee is second on the team with 31 stops, has a sack and has also forced a fumble and recovered one. Junior cornerback
Derek Broussard leads the Huskies with four pass breakups, although HBU does not have an interception through the first five games.
On special teams, junior punter
Christian Guzman is averaging 40.7 yards on 43 attempts, while sophomore kicker
Alec Chadwick is 7-for-10 on field goals, setting a new HBU single-season record for field goals made, and is 8-for-8 on extra points. Freshman
Otis Lanier made his debut as a kick returner two weeks ago at Western Kentucky, getting eight opportunities for 115 yards.
Nicholls (3-2, 2-1) is paced by quarterback Chase Fourcade, who has completed 84-of-152 passes for 993 yards, seven touchdowns and five interceptions. C.J. Okpalobi is the Colonels' leading rusher with 306 yards and three touchdowns, while Dontrell Taylor has 248 rushing yards and three scores. C.J. Bates has made 19 receptions for 240 yards and a touchdown, and Damion Jeanpiere has 14 catches for 228 yards and three touchdowns.
B.T. Sanders leads the Colonels with 36 tackles and has an interception and forced fumble, whereas Hezekiah White has totaled 35 stops and broken up three passes. Sully Laiche has made 32 tackles, leads Nicholls with four sacks and has forced a fumble. Jeff Hall and Christian Boutte each have two interceptions, with Hall making returns of 91 yards and 46 yards.
Tyler St. Germain is averaging 41.1 on 40 punts, while David McKey has made 5-of-7 field goals and 16-of-17 extra points. Stefano Guarisco has averaged 24.1 yards on 18 kickoff returns.
The all-time series between HBU and Nicholls is tied 1-1, with each team holding serve at home. The Huskies recorded their first-ever conference win with a 31-21 victory over the Colonels on Oct. 25, 2014, in Houston. Last season, Nicholls returned the favor, handing HBU a 38-17 defeat on Oct. 17 in Thibodaux.
The Huskies play four of their last five games on the road, including the next three. HBU will travel to face Southeastern Louisiana Oct. 22 in Hammond, followed by Lamar Oct. 29 in Beaumont, then another FBS and Conference USA matchup at UTEP Nov. 5 in El Paso.
HBU Head Coach Vic Shealy
"I think getting healthy again had to be a first priority for us as a staff (following the bye week). We had been through a tough month there of the injuries just kind of building on the previous week, so hopefully we'll get most of the kids back and get more healthy and then just go back and fundamentally play better, refine some things and execute better in practice."
"We've got great respect for what Coach (Tim) Rebowe and his staff and the players there at Nicholls have done in two years under his leadership. As a coach, you look at how they play and the way they create opportunities for themselves, fundamentally how sound they are and how hard they play and how tough and physical they are. It's what we all want as coaches, for our kids to look at on tape, it's an impressive bunch and I think when you look at some of the toughness of their schedule, they've had to play some good teams, and they played them well. I think that this is a team that probably everybody in our league doesn't want to play now, because of their ability to win on any given day and to physically beat you up when you play them, so it's going to be a tough game."
"Garrett (Dolan) we all probably feel like he's been around for a while and feel like he's played a lot of games -- and he has. Garrett is a tough, physical, inside guy and with those type linebackers he's really defined by, you want to be able to have a guy that, at the point of attack, is not going to turn out on a block made in the hole, that he's going to stay square and knock the ball-carrier back and he's going to physically set a tempo for who you are as a defense and is going to be relentless to put pressure on the quarterback. Garrett has been a great leader for us also, so we have probably come to expect certain things by Garrett, in terms of the certain number of plays that you can predict he will make, we feel like he's gotten better at tackling in space, has become a better coverage backer and made some improvements that had to be made and has become our "bell cow" on defense."
"Tony Dawson has made more plays off-schedule than you probably would like for all of us to reproduce and recreate offensive execution, but whenever an individual player makes a great play, you are obviously thankful for when those plays are made and Tony has made some things happen just based on his own ability to move his feet. His leadership has been tremendous, his enthusiasm and the confidence he's playing with, we feel like he's gotten better every week. We really feel like his first half against Western Kentucky may have been his single-best half of football, then pretty early on in the third quarter he got hit, so we felt it was in our best interest to keep him healthy for the rest of the season. We feel like he continues to grow. Terrance Peters got hurt against Sam early on in the second half and we kept him out last week just to get him more healthy. He looked really good in practice last week and looked really fast in practice yesterday, so I hope he continues to stay healthy, because if he does, he can be a difference-maker."
