Arkansas-Pine Bluff Turns Five Picks into a 63-21 Rout
Five interceptions. Two of them went back for touchdowns. That is how Arkansas-Pine Bluff got to 63-21 over Bethune-Cookman, and it is why a game that was over by halftime still ended with a lot of points on the board.
The Golden Lions needed 15 seconds to tell you how it was going. Jaylen Jennings ripped off an 87-yard touchdown run with 14:45 left in the first quarter, scored again from a yard out 55 seconds later, and then Camare Jackson returned an interception 37 yards to make it 21-0 before the first quarter was a third gone. It was 28-0 after one, and Du'Wayne Paulhill Jr. added a 79-yard interception return in the second. By halftime it was 49-0, and the third quarter began with Jack Schierholz finding Demetric Whitlock for a 2-yard score to make it 56-0.
Bethune-Cookman did not score until 1:10 was left in the third, when Cordan Patterson hit Myles Morales from 16 yards out. Two more touchdowns in the fourth (a 2-yard run by Deanwar Johnson and a 9-yard run by Patterson) made the score look kinder than the game was. Take away both pick-sixes and Pine Bluff still wins 49-21. Chris Hicks Jr. closed it with a 1-yard run with 2:39 left.
The yardage is the odd part. Pine Bluff threw for just 118 yards and still piled up 454 total, because it ran 32 times for 336 (10.5 per carry). Bethune-Cookman ran 53 times for 166 and threw 180 yards, with five picks against one of its own, and the Golden Lions also sacked the quarterback six times to the Wildcats' one.
Pine Bluff goes to 3-2. Bethune-Cookman drops to 4-3, and I suspect it will want this one filed away quickly.