Football Prepares For 2023 Season Finale At Home Against UAPB Saturday Afternoon

Football
11/17/2023 7:26:00 PM

TSU Sports Information

• Texas Southern closes out the 2023 season against Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Shell Energy Stadium on Saturday.

• Saturday’s contest will be shown live on HBCUGO with live audio on KTSU 90.9 FM.

• TSU ended a three-game slide with a dominating 44-10 win over Alcorn State on Sunday.

• TSU has not won consecutive games to close out the season since 1979. TSU has not won a season finale since 2000 as they defeated Norfolk State 17-12.

• TSU will face UAPB for only the third time since 2019. UAPB is one of three teams in the SWAC that TSU has a winning record against all-time (Mississippi Valley State/Prairie View A&M).

• TSU will honor 16 seniors at pregame on Saturday in Tavaris Achane, AJ Bennett, Nick Cotton, Demarcus Hall, Aidan Hemphil, Jacorey Howard, Skylon Johnson, Jadrian McGraw, Eyan Means, Derek Morton, Jack Nance, LaDarius Owens, Aaron Powell, KeShon Spraggins, Nicholas Taylor and Seth Willis.

• Picked last in the SWAC West, UAPB is under the direction of first-year head coach Alonzo Hampton. Rico Dozier headlines UAPB as he leads the SWAC with 118 tackles.

• TSU has played a pair of quarterbacks this season in Andrew Body and Jace Wilson. Wilson has taken over the top spot due to an injury to Body.

• Running back LaDarius Owens became TSU’s all-time leading rusher, all-time single season rusher and all-time all-purpose leader last weekend. Owens, who ranks second in FCS with 1,227 rushing yards, became TSU’s first 1,000-yard single-season rusher since 2005. Owens has 2,971 rushing yards and needs 29 yards for 3,000 career rushing yards. Thomas Sieh (1995-98)held the previous mark at 2,934 yards.

• Linebacker Jacob Williams is having a career season with 8 sacks and 98 tackles. He ranks 17th in FCS in tackles and 13th in sacks. TSU has not had a 100-plus single season tackler since 2004.

• The Tigers feature fifth-year head coach Clarence McKinney. A Houston native, McKinney attended high school across the street at Jack Yates High School and played collegiately at Montana State and the University of Mary. He also served as head coach at Yates before joining the staffs at Houston, Texas A&M and Arizona.

• Clarence McKinney is the 17th head coach in the history of Texas Southern Football. McKinney has a task ahead as the program has only had 28 winning seasons in 76 years of existence and hasn’t recorded a winning season since 2000.

• McKinney won as a student at Yates High School and helped the University of Mary post three winning seasons as a student-athlete in college which made school history. As head coach at Yates, McKinney posted a mark of 30-8 over three years before moving on to the collegiate ranks as an assistant. As an assistant at Houston, Texas A&M and Arizona, McKinney has only experienced three losing seasons in his 11 years of collegiate coaching.