Hounds ready for Kingsville

STAFF WRITER

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PORTALES — Following last week’s 62-0 nonconference blowout win over Bacone, the Eastern New Mexico football team travels to Kingsville, Texas, to take on the Javelinas in a Lone Star Conference showdown.

ENMU (5-3, 4-2 LSC) leads the conference in rushing with 335.1 yards per game on the ground. However, Texas A&M-Kingsville (5-3, 3-3) has the best run defense in the conference, allowing just 83.1 yards per contest. It’s strength vs. strength and the winner of this part of the game will likely walk away with the win.

“They’re doing a good job at stopping the run,” ENMU coach Josh Lynn said. “They’re a little unconventional, they run a different scheme in the league. They’re whole defense is built around speed. They don’t have the biggest of guys but they can fly around and move. They’re fast.”

Just like with Eastern’s offense, Kingsville doesn’t have one featured running back as the players all share the load. Nick Pelrean leads the team with 465 yards and seven touchdowns, but Greg Pitre and Luis Lopez also contribute with 349 yards and two touchdowns and 234 yards and four touchdowns, respectively.

“All three of those guys are pretty equivalent to each other,” Lynn said. “They all compliment each other. They’re a lot like Stanford. They play with a lot of tight ends and use the fullback occasionally. They do a bunch of different personnel on offense. I think they just want to run the ball and then set up the big play with their two outside receivers. Both are good players and their tight end, we need to watch out for.”

Those two wide receivers are Anthony Autry and Jordan Thomas. Autry leads the team with 458 yards off 27 receptions and six touchdowns and Thomas is right behind him with 22 catches for 368 yards and four touchdowns.

For Lynn and company, the plan is simple: Limit the running attack and prevent the long passes.

“If you look at this game, it’s a similar philosophy with us and them. We both want to run the ball. The play-action pass is huge for us and them. The team that’s patient and doesn’t give up the big play should be the winner in this one,” he said.

With last week’s win, ENMU was able to get playing time for its backups, so if the starters this week are struggling, Lynn already knows what his replacements are capable of.

“It was good. It was a non-conference game late in the year,” Lynn said. “It allowed us to get some people some action that they haven’t seen. We could pull starters to avoid injuries so that was good.”

Kickoff in Kingsville is scheduled for 6 p.m.