The Bison football team lost to the Henderson State University Reddies this Saturday with a score of 38-10. This was the first game the two nationally ranked Great American Conference teams played against each other.
Harding was undefeated until Saturday and ranked 23rd in the nation while Henderson State ranked 12th. Bison’s fans anticipated an exciting game, because the Reddies were so highly ranked. Sophomore running back for the Bisons Jason Oller anticipated the game as well.
“That was actually one of the only games I can think of that I was nervous about,” Oller said. “But most of that is just hype and superficial; once you get out there the nerves leave.”
Henderson State’s sophomore quarterback Kevin Rodgers passed for 466 yards total and five touchdowns. The Reddies were ahead 17-3 at halftime. Harding then scored their only touchdown during the third quarter when sophomore Ahmad Scott scored his second touchdown of the season from one yard out.
Oller had 44 yards on eight carries, giving him the second-most yards rushing for the Bisons.
“We are making adjustments and constantly trying to get better at what we do,” Oller said. “We run the ball and we need to be very effective at that in order to win. I have confidence that our coaches will put us in a position to succeed. All we have to do is execute it and we will get rolling again.”
Senior quarterback Kelvin Martin is confident of the team’s future and is looking forward to this Saturday’s game against Ouachita Baptist, who is ranked 11th in the nation.
“This loss just makes this upcoming game much more important,” Martin said. “We know what we have to do in order to stay in the playoff race and that is to win the rest of the games and I am confident we will do just that. That loss did not sink our ship and we will bounce back strong this week and take care of Ouachita Baptist down the road.”
According to Oller, the football team is trying to learn from their previous games in order to prepare for their upcoming game against OBU.
“We watch film every Sunday night and learn as much as we can from the previous game,” Oller said. “After that we turn our entire focus onto the next opponent. This weeks game is big for me not because we are both nationally ranked, but because OBU is in our conference and it would be really nice to knock off a rival and bring home a big trophy.”
