Bearkats looking to buck trend

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Bearkats looking to buck trend

By Cody Stark
Assistant Sports Editor

Even a football dummy realizes that it isn’t easy to win on the road, especially those long trips that include numerous hours on a bus or the hustle and bustle that comes with cross-country plane rides.

Historically, Sam Houston State has not bucked this nationwide trend. Over the past 10 years, the Bearkats are 8-18 in nonconference matchups away from Bowers Stadium. Two of their eight road wins during that stretch have come against Division II programs.

Granted, 14 of those games have come against Football Bowl Subdivision, or former Division I-A opponents, in which SHSU holds a 2-14 record. But things haven’t been any easier at the Football Championship Subdivision, or I-AA level, either.

The Kats are 4-6 against like FCS opponents, but two of those wins have come against Southwestern Athletic Conference teams that don’t participate in the postseason.

The thing that sticks out the most is that Sam Houston is 0-4 against FCS Top 25 teams on the road, with a pair of losses to Western Illinois (2000 and ’02), and losses at Montana (2003) and Northern Arizona (2002).

From a historical standpoint, that doesn’t bode well with the Bearkats traveling to Fargo, N.D., to face the fifth-ranked Bison of North Dakota State on Saturday.

So, what makes it so difficult to win on those red-eye road trips?

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