The Howard Payne Yellow Jackets weren’t flawless, but they were able to manufacture a 17-3 season-opening victory at George Fox last week. Now, first-year head coach Kevin Bachtel’s squad has turned its attention to Saturday’s 6 p.m. home opener at Gordon Wood Stadium and the Southwestern Assemblies of God Lions.

“I thought we played extremely hard and overcome adversity really well,” Bachtel said of HPU’s Week 1 performance. “There’s some things that happened that I don’t know if we would have overcome in the past, and that’s the biggest takeaway that I’m most proud of. We got some of the first-game jitters out and the kids competed extremely hard. We needed that, to have adversity and not everything go our way. That’s going to pay off for us later.”

The Jackets are facing NAIA Southwestern Assemblies of God, under the direction of head coach and former Dallas Greg Ellis, in the Lions’ first outing of the season. With a game under its belt already, Bachtel feels Howard Payne will carry a major advantage into the contest.

“It’s huge because our first-game jitters are out and they’re going to have some,” Bachtel said. “Any time you have a game under you, special teams you have the advantage and those things you have to work through at game speed, you’re past that now.”

SAGU is coming off a 7-3 season a year ago, leads the all-time series with HPU, 4-3, and took the last meeting, 63-34, in Waxahachie in 2017. Not having played in six years, and being its the first game for the Lions, there are uncertainties for which the Jackets must prepare.

“With George Fox last week, we had last year’s stuff, but our guys understand that in our schemes you can play anybody,” Bachtel said. “Everything’s built into our schemes. We can line up to anything defensively. The offense, we may have to tweak who we’re reading for RPOs, but it’s going to be a case of trial and error. This is what we’re getting so we’re going to throw this out. I don’t mind going in blind because our kids and our coaches know our scheme. It’s going to come down to who makes the best adjustments the fastest.”

The Lions will be attempting to replace NAIA All-Americans Keaton Dudik at running back and Keandre Belcher at defensive tackle. The Lions return just six of their 18 all-conference players from last season. Projected started quarterback Briley Green, who played in 11 games last season, threw for 2,122 yards with 17 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.

“They’re replacing their running back and that’s going to hurt them because he was legit,” Bachtel said. “Their quarterback is back but we don’t know what we’re going to get other than the running back being gone.”

In HPU’s win over George Fox last week, the Yellow Jackets produced 466 yards of total offense – 372 passing and 94 rushing – with a pair of turnovers, and generated just 17 points despite seven red zone trips.

“Offensively we moved the ball well, we just couldn’t get it into the end zone,” Bachtel said. “I felt like offensively (quarterback) Landon (McKinney) did a good job reading the stuff he was given and getting the ball to the guys. I wasn’t super pleased with the way we ran the ball. Our backs weren’t patient enough and didn’t stay in the designed run area. But offensively we have weapons, it’s just a matter of getting the ball in their hands and letting them go do their thing.”

McKinney completed 31 of 51 passes for 368 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, and added 25 yards rushing. Leading receivers were Jordan Carroll (8-121, TD), Javian Myles (8-45), Gus Charles (8-77), Samuel Sims (4-65), Deon Collins (1-20), and Casey Dufner (1-16). Myles (16-54 rushing) also anchored the ground game along with Brownwood-ex Reece Rodgers (8-29 rushing; 2-28 receiving) and Blessing Ngene, who scored on a 1-yard run.

Defensively, the Yellow Jackets created two turnovers and allowed just 17 yards rushing as George Fox generated 326 yards as team.

“The way they flew around and the way they overcame sudden changes, they handled that unbelievably well,” Bachtel said of the defense. “Our team speed really showed up, but I want to see us tackle a little bit better than what we did. I also want to see coverages not being blown. We blew two last week.”

ASC Defensive Player of the Week Peyton Lowe sparked HPU with eight tackles and a forced fumble along with KJ Kelly (eight tackles), Kale Shaw (seven tackles), Jessie Paris (six tackles), KC Kornelious (five tackles), Jacob Korrodi (four tackles) and KD Bookman (four tackles and a fumble recovery). Jaden Elie and Early-ex Ty Schafer each recorded a sack, Klyderion Campbell intercepted a pass and Kadarious Carr recorded four pass breakups.

As for coaching his first game at Gordon Wood Stadium as head coach of the Yellow Jackets, Bachtel said, “I’m pumped. It’s at 6 o’clock so it’s going to cool off a little and hopefully a lot of people will turn out. It’s a great atmosphere any time you play at Gordon Wood in the evening. Overall I want to see us grow and be better Week 2 than we were Week 1.”