Southern Illinois Never Trails and Holds Off Winless Samford
Samford ties it at 15 late in the third quarter, scores again in the fourth, and still goes 0-2. That is the short version of a game Samford had every chance to win and did not.
Southern Illinois took the first lead and never gave it up, though it came close to losing it. A 2-yard Jake Curry pass to Karsen Konkel and a safety made it 9-0, and after Cayden Aukerman's first touchdown pulled Samford within 9-7, Curry hit Miles Marshall from 7 yards with 34 seconds left in the half to make it 15-7 (the two-point try failed). Aukerman scored again from 5 yards with 2:18 left in the third, and Gabarri Johnson threw to him for the two-point conversion. Tied at 15, the only time all day.
Southern Illinois answered with Lem Wash's 3-yard run at 10:50 of the fourth, and 22-15 held up. Ty Ippolito kicked a 42-yard field goal at 6:42 to cut it to 22-18, and nobody scored again. So the final is 22-18, and Samford needed a touchdown it never found.
The ground game explains most of it. Southern Illinois ran 42 times for 184 yards against Samford's 27 carries for 70, and finished with 337 total yards to 272. Curry only completed 13 of 29 passes, but two of them went for touchdowns. Samford's quarterback threw an interception, and the defense, with 3 sacks, was more disruptive than Samford's 2. Southern Illinois is 1-1. Samford is 0-2, and Johnson's two touchdown passes were not enough to fix that.
Fantasy takeaway: a receiver with two scores on five catches outscored both starting quarterbacks.