The Howard Payne Yellow Jackets kept their flawless American Southwest Conference intact with a 30-18 home victory over McMurry last week, and look to do the same in front of a homecoming crowd at 2 p.m. Saturday as the Southwestern Pirates invade Gordon Wood Stadium.

The latest win for Howard Payne (5-1, 4-0) had its share of ups and downs as the defense carried a shutout into the middle portion of the fourth quarter, while the offense overcame three turnovers and numerous other missed opportunities.

“I thought our defense played our best game of the season,” Bachtel said. “I thought they did an absolutely outstanding job and held them scoreless until about midway through the fourth quarter, and that score was quite honestly a result of some of my errors.

“Offensively, you saw a team that didn’t have its best performance but you saw that we were resilient enough to come away with a victory in a hard-fought ball game. We knew they would do some stuff we hadn’t seen, but expected. It wasn’t the performance we would have like to have had on offense, but it was good enough to get a win.”

Over the past three games, the Yellow Jackets have established leads of 19, 28 and 23 points before the defense has yielded a point.

“That’s been huge,” Bachtel said. “We have had the early success, the early momentum, and it does to a degree relax kids so they can just play. We’re still trying to identify why there is the relaxing point to where we start giving up stuff on both sides of the ball, we haven’t pinpointed that. But it’s always great to be able to get up and take pressure off kids and coaches.”

The Yellow Jackets enter the contest averaging 575 yards per game, the most of any college in Texas in any classification. Bachtel, however, stated an improvement in the red zone and on third-down conversions will be required going forward for the Yellow Jackets to continue their win streak.

“We have to do a better job on third down and in the red zone, and the last two weeks in the red zone we’ve been really rotten,” Bachtel said. “Last week was an off day and we have to be better all the way around. We had some things that were there, that were open, and we just missed. When you break it all down, there were plays to be made we just didn’t make them. So we feel good about what we did, there’s just days where guys are off and I think that’s one of those days.”

Bachtel compared the offensive performance against McMurry to Howard Payne’s effort last season at Southwestern, a game in which the Yellow Jackets needed a touchdown drive in the final minute and a late interception to escape with a 21-17 victory. Ironically, both games were the sixth on HPU’s schedule.

“Last year was eerily similar to this past week’s game offensively,” Bachtel said. “The defense kept us in it, and we had to score on the last possession and had an interception at the end to seal the deal. We hope we have those kinks worked out.”

Southwestern (2-3, 1-2) is coming off its bye week and has lost league games to Mary Hardin-Baylor (68-14) and East Texas Baptist (31-10) with the win over McMurry (38-33).

The Pirates enter the contest averaging 22 points and 352 yards – 236 passing and 116 rushing – per contest, with nine turnovers on the season.

Quarterback Landry Gilpin has connected on 57 of 128 passes for 851 yards with six touchdowns and three picks. Gilpin is also the leading rusher with 163 yards and two touchdowns.

Leading the receiving corps is JoJo Wilson with 31 grabs for 319 yards and two scores, along with Ethan Powell’s 17 grabs for 344 yards and two trips to the end zone.

Other contributors in the backfield include Sam LeBlue (157 yards) and Jaquon Marion (156 yards, TD).

“They have one of the most talented quarterbacks in the country in terms of physical abilities of keeping plays alive in Landry Gilpin,” Bachtel said. “He was the Texas high school football player of the year his senior year, and he keeps a lot of plays alive. We really have to contain him, keep him in the pocket and not allow him to create extra stuff.”

HPU counters with a defense that allows 30 points and 409 yards – 264 through the air and 145 on the ground – with eight takeaways.

Standouts include ASC Defensive Player of the Week Kyle Bell (48 tackles, 2.5 for loss), Jessie Paris (36 tackles, 3.5 for loss), Jarett Brown (34 tackles, 3 for loss, 1 interception), K.C. Cornelious (33 tackles, 2.5 for loss), Peyton Lowe (29 tackles, 2 for loss, 1 interception), James Jakubowski (26 tackles, 4.5 for loss, 3.5 sacks, 1 interception), Jaden Elie (19 tackles, 5.5 for loss, 1 sack), and Brevin Wilson (17 tackles, 5 for loss, 2.5 sacks, 1 fumble recovery).

On the flip side of the ball, Southwestern is yielding 21 points and 340 yards – 233 through the air and 107 on the ground – with six takeaways.

The Pirate defense is led by Aleksander Gomez (50 tackles, 5.5 for loss, 1 sack), Payton Vaughn (35 tackles, 3.5 for loss, 1 interception), Patrick Nicholas (26 tackles, 1 fumble recovery), Ja’Marcus Ross (23 tackles, 1.5 for loss), and Blake Corekin (20 tackles, 3.5 for loss).

The Yellow Jackets are producing 47 points, 365 passing yards and 210 rushing yards per outing, with nine turnovers on the year.

Quarterback Landon McKinney has completed 115 of 197 pass attempts for 2,017 yards with 20 touchdowns and six interceptions. Otis Lanier leads the receiving corps with 34 catches for 607 yards and nine touchdowns, including six in the last two games. Other weapons in the passing attack include Jordan Carroll (24-518, 6 TDs), Hunter Cheek (14-384, 5 TDs) and Samuel Sims (10-144, 2 TDs).

The ground game for HPU is spearheaded by Tauren Bradley (359 yards, 2 TDs), Billy Reagins (388 yards, 5 TDs) and Javian Myles (336 yards, 5 TDs).