For the second straight week, the Aggies have protected home field as they used a monster first half to defeat Sam Houston on Wednesday night at Aggie Memorial Stadium.
NM State (4-3, 2-1) outscored Sam Houston (0-6, 0-3) 27-0 across the first two quarters and were able to fend off a comeback attempt from the Bearkats to collect their second league win of the season.
"We still got a lot of football to be played and we'll get better," remarked Head Coach Jerry Kill after the win. "I tell our kids to play hard and the one thing they do is play hard."
Junior Quarterback Diego Pavia captained an Aggie offense that put together 458 yards of total offense. On the night, Pavia finished with 286 yards passing and a team-high 115 rushing yards. He also threw two touchdowns and ran for another.
Pavia's top target on the night was Trent Hudson who finished the night with three catches, 122 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Eli Stowers was also heavily involved in the passing game – catching a team-best six passes while recording 57 receiving yards.
Defensively, Myles Rowser was the Aggies' top tackler as he finished with 10 tackles, including five solo from the safety position. In total, six different Aggies had five or more tackles as Andre Seldon (8), Keyshaun Elliott (8), Jordan Vincent (7), Buddha Peleti (7) and BJ Sculark (5) all tallied at least a handful of tackles.
FIRST HALF
The first possession belonged to the Bearkats who pieced together several gash plays before Buddha Peleti sliced through the Sam Houston offensive line to make a stop in the backfield and force the game's first punt.
With its first possession, the NM State offense featured several new faces as it started the game in a spread formation. Early in the drive, Diego Pavia connected with Eli Stowers who is quickly becoming one of Pavia's favorite targets. After doing it with his arm early in the drive, Diego used his feet to hurt the Sam Houston defense once the Aggies got into Bearkat territory. In total, Pavia rushed for 47 yards on the Aggies' first possession, including a 22-yard scamper for the first touchdown of the game.
The Aggie offense got the ball back after just four Sam Houston plays that gained 28 yards. With the second drive of the game the Aggies went 80 yards in the blink of an eye as Diego Pavia found Trent Hudson streaking down the field with no defenders within 15 yards of him. This would be Hudson's first reception of the game – going for 78 yards and a touchdown to put the Aggies ahead by 14 points with just one minute and 42 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
Once again, the Aggie defense restricted the Sam Houston offense to limited gain as the Bearkats punted the ball back to the Aggies after just four offensive plays. The Aggies continued to produce as a nine-play, 66-yard drive concluded with Ethan Albertson's first made field goal of the night.
The next Sam Houston possession concluded with a massive fourth down stop in which Myles Rowser stuck the Bearkat receiver inches before the line to gain. The Aggies then put together their fourth successful drive of the evening. The drive included an impressive toe-tap catch from wideout Jonathan Brady to set the Aggies up at the Sam Houston 14-yard line. Despite the drive stalling, NM State still walked away with three points as Albertson drilled a 39-yarder.
After yet another stop, the Aggies looked to come away with points on their fifth straight drive – beginning the drive at their own 11-yard line. Impressively, the Aggies used big plays from Monte Watkins, Trent Hudson and Eli Stowers to march down the field and put another seven points on the board just before the conclusion of the half. With the score, NM State carried a 27-0 lead into the locker room.
SECOND HALF
The game truly was a tale of two halves as the Bearkats forced the Aggies to punt on their first drive of the third quarter. After punting zero times in the first half, Zach Haynes would record a punt on seven of the Aggies' eight drives with the only drive not ending in a punt being the final drive of the game when NM State ran the clock out.
Meanwhile, Sam Houston put an end to the Aggies' shutout bid on its third drive of the second half after getting the ball at the Aggie 18-yard line via a blocked punt. From there, Sam Houston used just two plays to get across the goal line as Keegan Shoemaker found Noah Smith in the end zone. Following the Smith touchdown, the Bearkats attempted to go for two, however, the Aggie defense stuffed the try.
As the Aggie offense continued to struggle, Sam Houston scored again to bring the gap to just two scores with over 12 minutes remaining in the game. The Bearkat touchdown came after Shoemaker and Smith connected for a second time.
With nine minutes on the clock, Sam Houston got the ball back and drove down to the Aggie 27-yard line, however, a false start pushed the Bearkats back and eventually, they were forced to go for it on fourth-and-8. The pass from Shoemaker fell to the turf – giving the ball back to the Aggies with 4:16 on the clock. Sam Houston would get one more chance, however, the NM State defense would force another turnover on downs to emerge with the win despite not scoring any second-half points.
