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ABILENE, Texas – The brutal non-conference schedule for McMurry University continues Saturday when the NCAA Division III War Hawks face their second-straight NCAA Division I FCS opponent against UT-San Antonio on the road at 1 p.m. McMurry suffered an 82-6 loss to #14-ranked Stephen F. Austin Thursday, the worst loss in school history.
However, the War Hawks will look to turn the tide against the Roadrunners at the Alamodome. UT-San Antonio is a first-year football program under the direction of former University of Miami Hurricanes head coach Larry Coker.
UTSA defeated NCAA Division II Northeastern Oklahoma State Saturday 31-3 in front of 56,000+ fans spurred by a 21-0 start in the first quarter. By the end of the game, quarterback Eric Soza had passed for 237 yards and two scores while rushing for 102 yards and another touchdown.
McMurry head coach Hal Mumme has been in the same seat as Coker in starting an NCAA Division I-FCS program. Mumme began the program at Southeastern Louisiana State, won his first game and then struggled from all the energy focused on game No. 1.
“I hope it's kind of like mine, we were a little bit hung over from our first one,” said Mumme on his opinion of UTSA's second game as a program. “But, they executed really well, I don't know that we did that in our first game. They were impressive with their win so coach Coker has done a great job.”
Thursday's nightmare for McMurry didn't give a statistical impression of what the team was capable of. The War Hawks averaged 366.5 yards per game through the air last season in 2010, but were held to only 128 yards of total offense Thursday night.
The Lumberjacks led McMurry 53-6 at half.
“We played a lot of freshmen, and in the second half we played everybody,” Mumme said. “We played all three quarterbacks, and once we had missed our opportunities to be in the game, I was just going to play everybody and gain some experience.”
McMurry's goal was to get on the scoreboard in the first half somehow, and the War Hawks elected to go for 12 fourth-down conversions, particularly early before punting with all three quarterbacks a total of six times in the game.
Mumme said he admits the task was great, especially with the two-time defending Southland Conference champions in Stephen F. Austin.
“It's all my fault, I overscheduled us a little bit. The UTSA game we scheduled a couple of years ago because we thought that would be a neat deal for our players to play in the Alamodome,” he said. “This past week with SFA, we were dropped by a school in the schedule; we were supposed to have a home game, so then we couldn't find a game and they couldn't. It was pretty inviting to make a good check and go over there. If we're going to move the program up, we're going to have to learn where our competition is and learn to play those type of games; you have to start somewhere.”
UTSA and SFA will compete in the same Southland Conference for one season before the Roadrunners make the move to the NCAA Division I-FBS and the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). McMurry will have another element to deal with as UTSA played in front of a crowd of 56,743 at the Alamodome Saturday with the crowd expected to be comparable for game No. 2.
“We'll have to work on silent count quite a bit. They had a big crowd and they're excited about their new team,” Mumme said. “They played with a lot of enthusiasm when you watch them on film. They're very-well coached and high energy so we're going to have to play a lot better than we did last week.”
The game will air on The Longhorn Network and ESPN has exclusive rights to the video broadcast. This means that McMurry all-access subscribers will have to settle for an audio-only broadcast beginning at 12:45 p.m. In addition, the game will air locally in Abilene on 1560 AM KZQQ.
