From clutching titles to grasping for wins: The story of SHSU football's toughest season

It was late in the fourth quarter at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, a mild October night. Sam Houston has one last gasp at eking out victory over visiting UT-El Paso.

Bearkats quarterback Landyn Locke, in for a struggling Mabrey Mettauer, drops back to pass. His throw to Tim Burns Jr. is perfect – right where a wide receiver would want it. But the ball slips through Burns Jr.'s hands and, with it, a chance at SHSU's first win of the season. The Miners drain the clock and send Sam Houston to their seventh consecutive loss.

It wouldn't be their last.

It's shaping up to be Sam Houston’s worst season of football since 1948. How has a program that was used to competing for conference and national titles slid so far so quickly? It takes the right mix of chaos, starting with...

That's a big stack of name tags

When Temple University snatched up SHSU's title-winning coach, K.C. Keeler, at the end of the 2024 season, the floodgates opened for Sam Houston. The top 16 assistant coaches (including rising star Skyler Cassity), top defensive players, top running backs – all left in one fell swoop.

Such is the new reality of college football, in which players can jump schools each year in search of a larger stage and a better deal. As a result, programs that cannot pay to play will frequently experience an exodus of players.

That meant Sam Houston had to rebuild from the ground up. It began with a new head coach, Phil Longo, who had just been fired as offensive coordinator at Wisconsin.

In terms of recruiting, Longo was behind schedule the moment he was hired. In college football, the first major signing period in early December is the culmination of months of contact with players. Longo didn't start until two weeks after that. While his first recruiting class has produced a gem or two, the first-year coach was largely scrapping for who was left.

Longo himself puts it best:

In the end, Sam Houston kicked off the season with more than 50 new players – about half its roster. That's a lot of new faces, some of whom began just two months before the season started. Those are daunting circumstances for any team.

Not enough Monopoly money

Why couldn't the Bearkats keep their most talented players? One reason: money.

Sam Houston, a program that had prided itself on winning despite meager resources, wanted to play big-time football. As TV executives sought new inventory, money was flowing into the college football’s highest division, the FBS, and the ‘Kats wanted a piece of the action.

They got that piece by joining Conference USA, whose television rights deal pays each member school over $750,000 per year. But in moving to the FBS, Sam Houston also had to contend with a new devil that sprung up at the same time: "Name, Image, and Likeness," which let schools compensate their athletes directly.

Sam Houston, which had scrapped financially just to enter big-time football, now found this on its plate as well. It was in a world of Goliaths – and this time, David had barely a slingshot. Again Longo puts it best:

This house ain't a home

Many fans hang the hopes of the program on the improvements to SHSU's football stadium, which is currently undergoing expansion. “The students appear genuinely excited about the upgrades to Bowers Stadium and the great game‑day environment,” said Christian Ekpenike, sports reporter for SHSU's school paper, The Houstonian. “The school is doing the right things to build that excitement.”

In the meantime, SHSU is playing its home games in a largely empty stadium far from campus. Shell Energy Stadium, the home of Houston's Dash and Dynamo soccer teams, is 72 miles from Huntsville. Facing a rush-hour drive into the heart of the city to watch a mid-week game, many fans understandably stay home.

With that and what appears to have been lackluster marketing, attendance has been light. Official numbers have been around 5,000, but the stands have been far emptier than that.

Away from home, the 'Kats travel more than Carmen Sandiego. In their quest for television exposure, Sam Houston has been the visitor in four different time zones this year, grossing over 3,000 travel miles. They traveled to Hawaii, in exchange for last season’s game, and to Oregon to play Oregon St.

In a conference that stretches from New Mexico to Delaware, even within-conference opponents can be a thousand miles distant. It's been a punishing schedule at home and away.

The coach for the Longo haul?

As they voice their dismay and begin longing for a return down to the FCS level of football, Sam Houston fans have one other question: is Phil Longo THE guy?

Early indications are not favorable. The ‘Kats have been competitive in just three contests all season, and finding areas of improvement has been difficult. There has been tension in the locker room and multiple claims of unmet promises. Many players could head for the exit at the close of the season, creating a revolving door that would make it harder for the program to stabilize.

On the other hand, having to solve the problem of player retention is not specific to Longo.  It is faced by every coach this side of Alabama and Ohio State. Still, the edict "when the rich catch a cold, the poor catch pneumonia" applies. Any player retention issues will be that much harder for the resource-strapped Bearkats to solve.

Nevertheless, with two recent wins in his pocket, against Delaware and Oregon St., the countenance of the head man in Huntsville has changed. Gone are the signs of strain that dominated the season's opening months.

You can see it in the players, too, who are more relaxed and seem more assured on the field.  Recruits are back visiting games, and there is a full off-season of recruiting to look forward to. Groundhog Day isn't until February, but there are already signs of an early spring for SHSU football.