Rich Rodriguez sat down in his postgame news conference following Jacksonville State’s win on Wednesday, exhaled and said four words.
“It’s hard to win,” the coach said, repeating again, “it’s hard to win.”
While that was the first thing out of the coach’s mouth, his Jax State team made winning look easy again on Wednesday in Jacksonville.
The Gamecocks earned their fourth straight victory on Wednesday night, downing Middle Tennessee State with a 42-20 win at AmFirst Stadium.
The victory moved the Gamecocks to 3-0 in Conference USA and in a tie with Western Kentucky for the conference lead.
“When it’s our games, our conference, any conference, there’s good coaches, there’s good players everywhere, and every week is a challenge,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think we played our best at certain areas, at times tonight, but we played hard, and the guys continue to play hard. We ran the ball, controlled the game with our running game a little bit, and got a nice win.
“I’m happy with that. On to the next one.”
Tre Stewart once again shined in the victory, totaling 210 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries. He became the first 200-yard rusher for Jax State since Troymaine Pope ran for 250 against Charleston Southern in a 2015 victory in the FCS Playoffs.
Pope, now on staff as an offensive assistant at Jax State, was quick to hear about Stewart breaking his streak.
“I already did a little bit,” the Limestone transfer said when asked if he poked fun with Pope about snapping his streak. “But, he’s always been helping me.”
Stewart and quarterback Tyler Huff also combined for the most rushing yards since that victory; Huff ran for 151 yards and two touchdowns in the win.
Andrew Paul had the other two rushing touchdowns for the Gamecocks, scoring from 4 and 26 yards out in the absence of Anwar Lewis.
“Tyler ran really hard, Tre ran really hard, Andrew ran hard,” Rodriguez said. “The guys up front did a nice job. I think our tight ends did an outstanding job and our wide receivers blocked downfield.
“I don’t know what we rushed for; 438? That ain’t bad. But, that was a difference in the game. We didn’t get any turnovers, which is usually hard to win, but we controlled it with our running game.”
The victory has continued one of the best offensive streaks in Jax State’s history, with the last four victories combining for the most points in a four-game stretch since 2015; the Gamecocks have totaled 203 points in wins over Southern Miss, Kennesaw State, New Mexico State and MTSU.
“It’s up, but we’ve always got to maintain our level head because sometimes wins can get you up too high,” linebacker Laletia Hale said of the locker room culture. “But, I feel like we’ve got some guys that know what it takes to win, we know how it is to win, so we’re up, but not too up.”
The defense was once again highlighted by the linebacker tandem of Hale and Ole Miss transfer Reginald Hughes; Hughes finished with a team-high seven tackles and half a sack, while Hale had five tackles and a half a sack.
“Our two backers, Reggie and Laletia, have been really good the last four or five games; I’m talking about really good, outstanding linebacker play,” Rodriguez said. They’re big guys, they’re physical guys, they’re understanding the defense a little bit better. We did a few things today differently, we’ve got some areas to clean up a little bit, but they’re playing hard, and that’s the thing that I’m most proud of is that our standard, however hard we’re going to play, no matter the score, no matter the team, no matter the time, the game should never change. I think just from my vantage point, they played pretty hard.”
Fred Davis II had 1.5 tackles for loss to lead the team, while Zechariah Poyser had two of the team’s six pass breakups.
Jacksonville State (4-3, 3-0 CUSA) will travel to Liberty on Wednesday and look to remain atop the Conference USA leaderboard.
Liberty fell 27-24 to winless Kennesaw State on Wednesday.
“I heard Liberty lost, but they’re going to be at home, it’s going to be a big crowd, it’s going to be a big game,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got to have a great week of preparation.”
