With Wayland Baptist four weeks into its second football season in more than seven decades, the Pioneers this week enter the second season of their second season.
WBU kicks off Central States Football League play by opening a three-game home stand on Saturday afternoon against Texas College in a battle of teams looking for their first victories of the season.
"We're trying to win step by step," Wayland coach
Butch Henderson said. "The kids came in Monday morning and immediately started talking about starting conference."
Kickoff is at 2 p.m. at Greg Sherwood Memorial Bulldog Stadium, where tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students, available at the gate. The game can be heard locally on KKYN (106.9-FM) with video and audio streaming as well as LiveStats available via links at
www.wbuathletics.com.
It's the first round of action for a conference that's been around since 2000, but which did not have enough teams last year – when Wayland kicked off its program – to crown an official champion. With Oklahoma Baptist University making its gridiron debut this year, the CSFL is back in operation, and Henderson knows the Pioneers have as good a shot as any team to claim the conference championship and earn its accompanying playoff berth.
Besides, it's not like any other CSFL team has set the world on fire thus far, either. None of the six conference teams has a winning record, and only one, Bacone, is at .500. Four of the six are winless, so it appears to be anybody's title for the taking.
For Wayland to grab it, Henderson said the Pioneers will have to start playing more consistent football, something they've yet to do in their first three games.
"We're doing things, at times, extremely well," Henderson said. "It's just a matter of being able to do it for a complete ballgame."
The Pioneers (0-3) did it for a half two weeks ago by playing Houston Baptist to a 28-28 intermission tie in their home-opener, then last week against Howard Payne did it from near the end of the second quarter to the start of fourth by scoring 26 unanswered points. That prompted high praise from Henderson as he called it Wayland's "finest 15 minutes of football in two seasons."
Howard Payne, though, scored once more on a fluke play to steal the win, 38-34.
"We have to get where we complete a ballgame," Henderson reiterated. "Nobody cares how good you look and how close you play. You have to learn how to win a ballgame."
Henderson's counterpart, George Cumby, a former University of Oklahoma and Green Bay Packers star in his third season as head coach at Texas College, might be singing a similar tune after the Steers have dropped their first three outings as well, falling on the road to then No. 21 Belhaven University (Jackson, Miss.), 36-26, and NCAA Division I's Incarnate Word (San Antonio), 66-34, before dropping their home-opener last week in Tyler to Hardin-Simmons, 66-34.
"They're talented," Henderson said of Texas College. "They have some really talented kids. When they're on they play like kids out of the big leagues."
That includes senior quarterback Vincent McNeil, who in addition to being the Steers' leading passer, averaging 177 yards with four touchdowns and six interceptions, is also the team's leading ground-gainer with 255 yards rushing and four more scores.
"The quarterback is the key to what they do," Henderson said. "You can't relax with him. You don't know whether to pressure him and push him out (of the pocket) because he runs so well, or leave him in there and let him throw."
McNeil's favorite target is Ja'Marius Allen, a 5-foot-10 junior wide receiver who has a dozen catches. Allen averages 14 yards per grab and 55 yards per game.
Texas College has not enjoyed a winning season since 2006 and has produced just three wins over the past four seasons. One of those was a 26-0 victory over Wayland last year in Tyler that ended a 15-game losing skid for the Steers. In that contest played in a virtual downpour, the Pioneers were limited to nine first downs and 70 total yards, including minus-42 yards rushing.
"Defensively they have a lot of team speed," Henderson said. "They run to the ball well."
Except for cutting back on the number of penalties for which they were called last week (17 for 145 yards), the coach said the Pioneers don't plan any major changes in their approach to Saturday's game.
"I don't think you change what you do. By now we know who we are and what we do. We just have to step out there and execute it.
"We've done that at times. We've done pieces of it extremely well. We're seeing some great things out of the kids. We just need to make a complete game."
