Midway through the season – and off to the best start to a campaign since 2002 – the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets are undefeated and atop the American Southwest Conference standings, where they look to remain when they visit the Southwestern Pirates at 1 p.m. Saturday to kick off the second half of the 2021 football slate.

With a win over Southwestern (1-4, 1-3) Saturday, the Yellow Jackets (5-0, 4-0) will ensure their first winning record since 2005 – but the team goals are much loftier at this point.

“Originally our goals coming into the season were win Game 1 and win the first conference game, they just happened to be the same game, have a winning record, and put ourselves back into the national picture,” said HPU first-year head coach Jason Bachtel. “We won the first game and the first conference game and I feel like we are nationally relevant any time you start getting Top 25 votes. We have a chance to get to a winning season with another win, but now we’re starting to talk bigger picture. Now we’re sitting undefeated and all the sudden the guys are starting to talk playoffs now and conference championships. The chatter in locker room is about making a move to play for a conference championship and to get into the playoffs, and that elevates everyone’s performance level. We were realistically two years away from really have those big talks, but we’re ahead of that trajectory and it’s a realistic conversation at this point. At the same time, the mindset is we’re still playing with a go 1-0 this week mentality because you can’t talk about those things if you drop one this week.”

Coming into Saturday’s game, Howard Payne generates an NCAA Division III national-best 614 yards – 411 through the air and 203 the ground – per outing, to go along with 52 points, which ranks No. 4 in the country. HPU’s passing yards per game is the second-most for any NCAA Division III program.

Jake Parker leads all college receivers of any classification in the state of Texas with 644 receiving yards on 27 catches with nine trips to the end zone. Other receiving standouts include Otis Lanier (15-353, 4 TDs), Selah Smith (9-121, TD), Josh Aldama (7-102), Tyler Vann (7-99), Max McCuiston (6-206, 3 TDs), Hunter Cheek (6-94, 2 TDs), Collyn Shipley (5-86), Javonte Russell (5-57, TD) and Casey Dufner (4-78, 3 TDs).

Landon McKinney is third among all college quarterbacks of any division level in Texas with 1,696 passing yards as he’s completed 85 of 146 passes with 21 scoring tosses and just three interceptions.

Leading rushers include Tauren Bradley (412 yards, TD), Stephen Willis (251 yards), and Derrick Berry (165 yards, 2 TDs).

“I’m not surprised at what the offense does, but I am surprising at how well our kids have adapted to the change and to be quite honest, Jake Parker is the catalyst,” said Bachtel. “When he saw what it was we were trying to get accomplished, he was automatically on board. So when your best players and team leaders go all in, everybody else gets on board and that’s exactly what’s happened. This is a kid friendly offense and if you want to be a playmaker, you have a chance to make plays. We give them a lot of freedom in what they do. When you see Jake Parker is the leading receiver, that’s because he knows how to go make plays and we let him make plays.”

While the offense is turning heads across the country, the Yellow Jackets defense has shown significant improvement as it allows 28 points and 389 yards – 274 passing and 115 rushing – per game, with 12 takeaways, an average of 2.5 per contest.

Standouts include Peyton Lowe (30 tackles, 4 for loss, 2 INTs, 1 FR), Dai’Shawn Fisher (26 tackles, 3 for loss, 1 FR), James Jakubowski (24 tackles, 3 for loss, 2 sacks, 1 FR), Kyle Bell (19 tackles, 1 INT), Jarrett Brown (17 tackles), Aaron Alderete (12 tackles, 1 for loss, 1 sack), Dylan Zeno (12 tackle, 1 FR), Kaleb Jones (11 tackles, 3.5 for loss), David Bush (10 tackles, 1.5 for loss), and Brayden Rhea (10 tackles, 1 for loss).

“What I like and what I hate at the same time is the offense is getting a lot of credit, but if it wasn’t for defensive stops or defensive turnovers, your offense isn’t in those situations,” Bachtel said. “To be completely honest I think when (former head) Coach (Braxton) Harris was here, a defensive-minded guy, that’s what the philosophy of the program was, to play really great defense and sometimes the offense suffered. People will look at us now and think we’re very offensive-minded and not very defensive-minded, but defense is still very much the top priority. We preach takeaways and giving the ball back to the offense. In the spring I thought we lost an edge I thought Coach Harris brought, but Coach KB (defensive coordinator Kevin Bachtel) brought that back when he came in last March after the season. I started seeing that edge come back and they’re playing with confidence because we’re keeping it simple and we can play fast. There’s a lot of stuff in the secondary that still has to be adjusted, but they’re starting to get takeaways and in the first two games I don’t know that we had a takeaway from the secondary. Now all the sudden we’re starting to get secondary takeaways and the players start feeding off each other. The whole defensive unit from top to bottom has gotten better every single week.”

Southwestern is in the midst of a three-game losing streak with losses to Mary Hardin-Baylor (54-3), McMurry (41-31) and East Texas Baptist (27-17). The Pirates opened ASC action with a victory at Belhaven (34-27) back on Sept. 11.

The Pirates average 18 points and 278 yards – 151 passing and 127 rushing – per game, with 11 turnovers.

Quarterback Landry Gilpin has thrown for 693 yards with seven touchdowns and six interceptions, while rushing for a team-high 300 yards and two scores. Leading receivers include Austin Castilleja (14-254, 4 TDs), Jaquon Marion (13-83, TD), and Ethan Powell (11-170 TD). Marion has also chipped in 180 yards rushing.

“Offensively they’re really electric because they’ve got an electric quarterback,” Bachtel said. “I always like watching quarterbacks who are coach’s kids because I think they have a knack for the game and he does. He was the Texas player of the year a couple of years ago, so he’s pretty good and he does a lot with his feet. He keeps plays alive. If you go back in Howard Payne history, he’ll remind you of Adam King.”

Defensively, Southwestern yields 21 points and 311 yards – 188 through the air and 123 on the ground – with five takeaways.

Leading tacklers include Peyton Ludemann (33 tackles), Bernard Sencherey (29 tackles, 3 for loss, 1 sack), Aleksander Gomez (24 tackles, 2 for loss, 1 sack), Patrick Nicolas (21 tackles, 1 for loss), and Jason Lund (20 tackles, 2.5 for loss, 1 sack).

“They’re going to give us different fronts and they like to mix things up,” Bachtel said. “Our offensive line guys sometimes think it’s the flavor of the week for them because every ballgame we’ve seen something different. That in itself creates challenges because we want to keep everything so simple up front. They’re going to present challenges in what they show to us.”

As for special teams – where the Jackets scored on an 81-yard kick return by Smith and an 83-yard punt return by Parker in the last two games – Bachtel said, “I think it’s going to be an even matchup. You look at both teams and we’re really similar in what we do, but overall I think it’s going to be a good ballgame out in Georgetown.”

American SW Conference		Conference Wins	Conference Losses	Overall Wins	Overall Losses
Howard Payne		4	0	5	0
Mary Hardin-Baylor		4	0	5	0
Hardin-Simmons		3	1	4	1
Belhaven		2	2	3	2
East Texas Baptist		2	2	3	2
Austin College		1	3	1	3
McMurry		1	3	1	3
Sul Ross		1	3	1	3
Southwestern		1	3	1	4
Texas Lutheran		1	4	1	4

Week 6 Games

All teams had bye weeks

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Week 7 Games

Howard Payne at Southwestern

Sul Ross at Belhaven

Austin College at McMurry

Texas Lutheran at Mary Hardin-Baylor

Hardin-Simmons at East Texas Baptist