Bearkats prep for 2023 season with CUSA media day
Jul. 26—ARLINGTON — After a long wait, Sam Houston football made its first appearance at the Conference USA media day.
The Bearkats were represented by head coach K.C. Keeler, linebacker Trevor Williams and quarterback Keegan Shoemaker.
Last season saw a down for the Bearkats as they finished with a 5-4 record and dropped their last two games of the year, but they did so with 15 of their players standing on the sideline.
With the transition and "playing for the standard" the Bearkats redshirted a number of players to save them a year of eligibility for the move to CUSA. Now the Kats get back key playmakers in Noah Smith, Ife Adeyi, Markel Perry, Sincere Jackson, and Trevor Williams.
"First off, knowing the schedule we have coming up creates some excitement and motivation," Williams said. "I got a different perspective of the game. I was able to sit back and look at what I can do differently and better. Having that period of time allowed me to grow and be a better person. I think it's giving me the ability to prepare and be excited. I'm looking forward to getting back into the situation."
Defense has been the mainstay for Sam Houston in the last handful of years, and with the move, nothing seems to be different. Last season, the Kats held teams to an average of 20.78 points per game. That is with allowing 31 to Texas A&M and 45 to Abilene Christian.
And that was without its keyholds.
The Bearkats gain back Perry, who has 16.5 career sacks and another 126 total tackles at the linebacker spot.
"I'm excited to see Markel out there terrorizing," Keeler said. "Trevor is one of the best football players I've ever coached. I'm excited, I think the defense will be pretty stout. We are thin in the defensive tackle spot but I like our starters. I think with the depth we have at linebacker is going to give us the opportunity to do some different things. It has to start with our defense."
While the Bearkats are getting several of their key pieces back, they still have to find the perfect guy to play signal caller for them. Shoemaker is currently entrenched in a quarterback battle for the second consecutive preseason.
Last year, Shoemaker lost the battle to now running back Jordan Yates, and this season he must go against a transfer from the University of North Texas' Grant Gunnell.
Gunnell, who played in Arizona for two years, comes to Sam Houston with this being his fourth college to enter the season as a graduate student with three years left of eligibility.
"I have such trust in Keegan," Keeler said. "He is a guy that we can have honest conversations with. We told him that this was his team but we needed to bring somebody in that can compete at that position. Grant [Gunnell] was perfect, if he had one year left we wouldn't have brought him in, it was a perfect situation for both of them. Keegan knows that this is his team but he has to compete for the job and Grant knows it's wide open. I think we found the perfect compliment for what we were trying to do."
Last season, Shoemaker made six starts for the Bearkats and threw for 1,122 yards and six touchdowns. But that was after injuries and the benching of Yates in the Texas A&M-Commerce game.
This would mark the second straight year that the Bearkats will face a QB battle at the start of training camp.
Not only does the quarterback come into question, Keeler has hired his second offensive coordinator in two years — it will be the Bearkats third OC as tight ends coach Matt Merkens filled in last season.
"[Brad] has been doing great," Shoemaker said. "I think the spring went super well. I think it's going to allow us to have great opportunities. It's a little bit more simple than we had before, which I love. People are going to be able to play hard and fast without thinking as much."
Going into the final year of the WAC and the first transition year, the offense was statistically one of the worst in the entire Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
Perry was demoted before the Utah Tech game last season and the offense slightly improved but it was nowhere near the top of FCS play like it has been under former OC and now Delaware coach Ryan Carty.
With the hire made in January, Brad Cornelsen took over the offense and had plenty of time to implement his schemes. Cornelsen was the former OC at Virginia Tech and had its run game fourth amongst the Power Five squads.
The move can help the Kats get back the uptick in the run game but provides the comfort of slowing things down when necessary during games.
"I've been really impressed with Brad. When we interviewed him, it was exactly what I was looking for, it was like when I interviewed Ryan Carty," Keeler said. "Brad is a former power-five O-Coordinator and did a great job. I was impressed with what he did this spring. He is as thorough as anybody I've ever been around."
Sam Houston will get to put its new FBS offense to the test on Sept. 2 when the Bearkats travel to Provo, Utah, for a Saturday night matchup against BYU.
