The Harding Bisons continued thir dominant play this weekend as they racked up more than 600 total yards of offense in their 63-21 victory over Southern Nazarene University Saturday night at First Security Stadium. The total yards rank third highest in team history.
Harding’s offense took the field Saturday night with their pre-season starting quarterback Keenan Kellett back at the helm.
“It felt great to finally get back out their after a long awaited return,” junior quarterback Keenan Kellett said. “I needed to get that game time experience to continue making strides as an individual.”
Keenan Kellett scored on a 32-yard run on his first attempt from scrimmage Saturday night. Followed by a 60-yard touchdown pass to Donatello Luckett, giving the Bisons an early 21-0 lead over Southern Nazarene.
As the lead began to grow, Keenan Kellett found himself without a helmet, and stuck on the sideline for the remainder of the game.
“I pretty much took myself out of the game,” Kellett said. “I just felt that I had gotten the work in that I needed to and didn’t want to risk not being healthy going into a big game verses Southern Arkansas University.”
Assistant Offensive coach Kevin Chism said he thinks Kellett did really well, coming out poised and confident, making the right reads for their offense, and the decision to take him out of the game was based off precautionary reasons and to get a head start on recovery for next weeks game.
Harding scored seven touchdowns Saturday night, getting a helping hand from a number of different players, including all four quarterbacks, three of which put up points.
Chism said they had a lot of guys who were able to play in their second game as a Bison, and outside of a few errors having to be cleaned up, Chism said overall he was pretty happy with the team’s production.
The Bisons were able to put up 63 points, just missing their previous total last week of 69. Combined, the Bisons have put 132 points in the last two weeks, breaking a previous two-game scoring record back in 2011.
The Bisons’ defense held Northwestern to no points last weekend, but failed do to that Saturday by giving up 21 points and over 300 yards to Southern Nazarene. The Bisons did manage to record seven sacks, two coming from junior defensive tackle Romas Roberson (career high).
Senior Linebacker Erik Ragsdale said he was proud of the defense the last two weeks, but said there is still room for improvement on the defensive side of the ball.
“We need to continue to get better at technique, assignments preparation, and eliminating big plays.” Ragsdale said.
Erik Ragsdale left in the first quarter after aggravating his right knee Saturday night and is expected to get an MRI sometime this week.
The Bisons will have a short week coming up, as they prepare for a Thursday night game against division foe Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, Ark.
“Last year SAU held us to our lowest output we’ve had since we went to this offence in 2010,” Chism said. “I don’t think we will have to do too much of a sell job to get our guys focused and ready to go.”
Kellett said he and the team are going to approach this short week with the same sense of urgency they would for a Saturday game.
The Bisons (2-1) will travel to Wilkins Stadium to face Southern Arkansas University (3-1) in a national televised game on CBS Sports.
Each team with one conference loss a piece, look to get a big win and stay in the top half of the Great American Conference.
The game will show Thursday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m. on CBS Sports, the channels are the following:
Direct TV: 221
DishNetwort: 158
Harding Cable: 65
