LAKE CHARLES — As if Sam Houston State’s national semifinal run doesn’t indicate, the road to the Southland Conference championship goes through Huntsville.

And back south through Lake Charles.

SHSU on Wednesday was favored by the Southland’s sports information directors and coaches to take back the conference title from McNeese State. The Bearkats, who had won or shared three of the past four titles before 2015, earned nine of 11 first-place votes in the coaches’ poll and 10 of 11 in the SIDs’ poll. McNeese State, which went 10-0 in the regular season before losing to SHSU in the NCAA Division I playoffs, garnered the remaining tabs in both lists.

Third-year coach K.C. Keeler didn’t mention the preseason favoritism during Wednesday’s Southland Conference Media Day. Rather, he views the Bearkats as a team that’s starting over from an 11-4 season.

“We lost plenty of coaches during the offseason,” said Keeler, who saw five of his coaches go to other programs. “We’re sort of starting from ground zero.”

Keeler replaced an offensive coordinator with Phil Longo, a defensive coordinator with Brad Sherrod, a cornerbacks coach with Gary McGraw, a running backs coach with Zach Patterson and a defensive line coach with former Texas Longhorn Rodrique Wright.

In each of Keeler’s first two seasons in Huntsville, the Bearkats have had to come back from below ground zero, so to speak.

They had to spark a turnaround from a 0-2 start that included a 49-46 loss at home to Lamar. The Bearkats had won 27 of 28 at Bowers Stadium before the defeat.

“If you look at the year before, we stared 1-3,” said Keeler, a 2003 national champion at Delaware. “We lived off the year before. I stood up and I said, ‘I still believe in this team.’ We’ve always had good players. We just needed to play better.

“We kind of got close to beating Texas Tech [but lost 59-45 in the 2015 season opener]. For two weeks, we kept hearing about how close we came to beating them, and then Lamar came in and played one heck of a football game. It wasn’t us playing as bad as it was Lamar playing one heck of a football game.”

SHSU went through the entire season with two quarterbacks, but Jeremiah Briscoe is manning the controls of the offense this season as Jared Johnson will take over at UTSA as a graduate.

Keeler, who prefers an “old-school” one-QB system, said it was difficult to play both, although he was really happy with his situation.

“I’m still having to work as hard and push myself every day,” said Briscoe, whose 1,883 passing yards and 14 touchdowns trailed Johnson’s 2,216 and 18. “If I see something that I feel like I can grasp or something I can go after, whatever happens, it doesn’t really matter whether I come off the bench.”

Briscoe said he’s driven this season by SHSU’s ugly 62-10 loss at Jacksonville (Ala.) State in last December’s NCAA Division I semifinal.

“That day we played our worst offensive game and they played flawlessly,” Briscoe said. “We couldn’t even beat a high school team that day, the way we played.”

 

RULE CHANGES

Southland director of officials Byron Boston on Wednesday reviewed several changes made to the FCS beginning this season.

Among them:

• Head coaches may ask to have one timeout per month taken in full (60 seconds) per half;
• any coach who receives two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties will be ejected from the game and must immediately leave the playing area; the coach cannot move to the coaches’ area in the stadium press box;
• electronic devices may be used for coaching purposes in the press box and locker room during the game, but are still not allowed on the sideline or on the field;
• a quarterback may be tackled below the knees with the defender’s arms wrapping around the QB;
• tripping a ball carrier with the leg is now a penalty; and
• the replay official shall review all targeting fouls, and the offender may be ejected as deemed by the official.

 

SOUTHLAND ON TV

The conference released its early television schedule for this season. Other Southland games to be selected for broadcast will be made no later than 12 days prior to kickoff:

• Sept. 1: Houston Baptist at Central Arkansas, 6 p.m., American Sports Network
• Sept. 2: Northwestern State at Baylor, 6:30 p.m., Fox Sports Net
• Sept. 3: Southeastern Louisiana at Oklahoma State, 2:30 p.m., FSN; Oklahoma Panhandle State at Sam Houston State, 6 p.m., ESPN3.com; Coastal Carolina at Lamar, 7 p.m., ESPN3.com; Stephen F. Austin at Texas Tech, 7 p.m., FSN
• Sept. 8: Incarnate Word at Northwestern State, 6 p.m, ASN
• Sept. 10: McNeese State at Louisiana-Lafayette, time TBD, ESPN network TBD; Nicholls State at Georgia, 11 a.m., SEC Network; Lamar at Houston, 11 a.m., ESPN3.com; West Alabama at Stephen F. Austin, 6 p.m., ESPN3.com; Texas Southern at Houston Baptist, 7 p.m., Root Sports Southwest
• Sept. 17: Stephen F. Austin at McNeese State, 6 p.m., ASN; Abilene Christian at Houston Baptist, 7 p.m., Fox College Sports; Sam Houston State at Lamar, 7 p.m., ESPN3.com
• Sept. 24: Central Arkansas at Arkansas State, time TBD, ESPN network TBD; Nicholls State at South Alabama, time TBD, ESPN network TBD; Northwestern State at SE Louisiana, 6 p.m., Cox Sports TV; Abilene Christian at Stephen F. Austin, 6 p.m., ESPN3.com; Sam Houston State at Houston Baptist, 7 p.m., Fox College Sports
• Oct. 1: Central Arkansas at Abilene Christian, 2:30 p.m., ASN; Stephen F. Austin at Sam Houston State, 3 p.m., ESPN3.com; Nicholls State at McNeese State, 6 p.m., ESPN network TBD; SE Louisiana at Lamar, 7 p.m., ESPN3.com
• Nov. 17: SE Louisiana at Nicholls State, 6 p.m., ASN

Friday: A quick look at select Southland football teams.

I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews