When Michael Nunnery first arrived in Magnolia in the summer of 2013, Southern Arkansas Unversity's football team wasn't used to winning.
The Muleriders had gone 8-2 during the 2012 season -- the team's first winning record since 2005 -- and the 6-4 and 5-5 seasons Nunnery witnessed in his first two years didn't show the signs of a program that could consistently win.
At a glance
SOUTHERN ARKANSAS
MASCOT Muleriders
COACH Bill Keopple (42-42 in eight collegiate seasons at Southern Arkansas and overall)
LAST SEASON 9-3, 9-2 Great American Conference
OFFENSIVE PLAYER TO WATCH RB Michael Nunnery
DEFENSIVE PLAYER TO WATCH LB Corey Jenkins
NOTEWORTHY The Muleriders are ranked No. 22 in the NCAA Division II AFCA coaches poll. … Picked by coaches poll as the favorite to win the Great American Conference title, which would be their first since the league was formed in 2011. … Lost to Texas A&M-Kingsville 24-17 in the United Bowl last season, which was SAU’s second bowl appearance since the 2012 Heart of Texas Bowl (L, 36-35 to McMurry) and the 1990 Aztec Bowl (W, 41-31 over the Mexican All-Stars). … Is 36-21 against GAC teams since the league started. … Ranked 20th in Division II in total offense (469.8 yards per game) and was 27th on yards allowed per game (319.9). … The team’s .651 completion percentage was 11th in Division II.
Schedule
DATE OPPONENT TIME
Aug. 31 at Arkansas Tech 7 p.m.
Sept. 9 Harding 6 p.m.
Sept. 16 SW Okla. State 6 p.m.
Sept. 23 at NW Okla. State 6 p.m.
Sept. 30 Oklahoma Baptist 6 p.m.
Oct. 7 at Southern Nazarene 1 p.m.
Oct. 14 at East Central 2 p.m.
Oct. 21 SE Okla. State 2:30 p.m.
Oct. 28 at Henderson State 2 p.m.
Nov. 4 Ouachita Baptist* 2 p.m.
Nov. 11 Arkansas-Monticello 2 p.m.
- Murphy USA Classic at Memorial Stadium in El Dorado
"You didn't know if you'd win or lose this week," said Nunnery, a fifth-year senior running back at SAU. "It was tough going to practice knowing you don't have much to play for at the end of the year."
SAU has now gone 16-7 in the past two seasons, including 9-3 last year in a season that ended with a 24-17 loss to Texas A&M-Kingsville in the NCAA Division II United Bowl. A 40-37 loss in four overtimes to Ouachita Baptist likely kept the Muleriders out of the Division II playoffs, and for the first time, Nunnery found himself with something to play for.
"Now we expect these wins," said Nunnery, a second-team All-Great American Conference pick who rushed for 1,110 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2016. "We've got high expectations."
So did the conference's coaches, who picked SAU to finish first in the conference in a preseason poll.
"From what I know, it's not something that's happened here in the history of the school," said SAU Coach Bill Keopple, who in 2009 inherited a team that was 18-35 in the years since a 2003 playoff appearance. "That means we've turned the corner."
Keopple has a 42-42 record in eight seasons at SAU -- a career that started 7-23 in his first three seasons.
"It couldn't really have been a whole lot worse as a program at the time," said Keopple, a Little Rock Parkview graduate who served as an assistant under Houston Nutt in 1997 at Boise State and in 1998 and 1999 at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. "It was a struggle for three years, without a doubt. But we turned the corner in [2012], and we've been solid ever since."
Keopple said the changes occurred with "the kind of guys you get," like Nunnery, who now have the coach thinking that this team is the "best we've probably had here."
The Muleriders return eight starters from the GAC's top offense (469.8 yards per game in 2016), which includes Nunnery and junior quarterback Barrett Renner, who led the GAC in passing (3,371 yards, 27 touchdowns, 13 interceptions) last season.
Nunnery said the key to SAU's offense "is a dominant run game," but still called Renner "the best quarterback in the country."
Nine starters return on an SAU defense that was second in the conference in yards allowed per game (319.9), trailing only Harding University, which gave up the least yards (257.9) in the GAC's six-year history. Senior defensive back and leading tackler Elgin Moore (80) returns along with senior linebacker Corey Jenkins, who led the team with 10.5 tackles for loss.
SAU will open the season at Arkansas Tech University on Aug. 31, which will be the first time the team opens against an in-state GAC opponent since a 63-14 loss to Harding in 2011. SAU has lost to Tech in its past four trips to Russellville, but Tech's offensive coordinator, Brent Dearmon, may have given SAU some unwarranted aid when he co-authored a book on his offense that was published in June.
In the book, titled The Evolution of the RPO, Dearmon discussed the run-pass-option offense that he has featured as a high school coach in Alabama, offensive assistant at Auburn and the offensive coordinator at Tech.
Perhaps it provokes an epic sideline scene like when actor George C. Scott shouted across a battlefield, "I read your book!" as U.S. General George S. Patton, facing the Hollywood Howitzers of Nazi General Erwin Rommel, who had written a book on deceptive warfare.
SAU's Jenkins said defensive coordinator Trent Figg has read Dearmon's book, and the team has "been studying it."
"We're going to have a game plan against them," Jenkins said. "[Figg] knows what they want to do."
A victory over Tech would set up a potential conference championship-deciding match up with Harding on Sept. 9, which beat SAU 35-14 last season.
Now SAU expects to win.
"I want to see us grow even more this upcoming season than any other season," Jenkins said. "We're on a path now. We've changed the program. I want to come back and watch the team I played for change more and more and become a powerhouse in [Division II]."
Sports on 08/25/2017