Photo courtesy of Hardin-Simmons Athletics
ABILENE — The sequence spanned just five plays in the first quarter, a relatively small fraction in a game that saw 127 plays run. And yet it encapsulated the day that was; a microcosm of what went so wrong for No. 22 UMHB, and what went so right for ninth-ranked Hardin-Simmons that ultimately led to the Cowboys’ largest margin of victory against their longtime rival in over two decades.
The synopsis of that sequence is this: With HSU’s offense in the red zone, threatening to take a two-score lead, UMHB defensive end Aidan Ross gets around a block, making a beeline for HSU quarterback Kyle Brown, who is looking downfield for a receiver. Ross hits an unsuspecting Brown hard on his blindside, popping the ball loose, as Braden Eberwine makes the fumble recovery for UMHB. The Crusader sideline is going crazy, having stolen back some of the momentum that shifted in HSU’s favor on Noah Garcia’s 43-yard touchdown run five minutes earlier. It’s a chance for UMHB to reverse the early course of this crucial conference showdown, a course that so far hasn’t given the UMHB faithful much reason for confidence. But as quickly as that momentum came, it suddenly vanished. The Cru’s first play from scrimmage ends with the ball loose on the ground—an unforced fumble on a bad snap that never even reaches quarterback Seth Mouser-–then in the hands of HSU’s Kaiden Roden. It’s a turnover for a turnover. And this time, HSU doesn’t make the same mistake twice, taking possession on the UMHB 23-yard line. The Cowboys put the ball in Garcia’s hands, and he answers the call, with 23 rushing yards on the next three plays. The last of those—a four-yard scamper up the middle—sees the senior tailback cross the goal line.
HSU gets its two-score lead after all. And the lead only grows from there, eventually reaching 34-0 in the first minute of the fourth quarter. Those on the Crusader sideline are left to shake their heads in disbelief and frustration.
“Yeah, bad snaps, turnovers, short fields,” UMHB head coach Larry Harmon said after his team’s 34-7 loss, which dropped The Cru to 2-3 overall and 1-1 in the ASC. “You have to be able to score points. You have to be able to get stops. You have to be able to execute on special teams.
“The first half, we were just terrible. It’s my responsibility. We’ve got to get it fixed.”
The last time UMHB dropped a game to HSU by 27 points—the second-largest loss to the Cowboys next to a 56-9 loss during the 1998 inaugural season—the year was 2004. Of course, as the story goes, The Cru returned to face the Cowboys a month later in the playoffs, and avenged the defeat in a 42-28 win as part of a historic run to the Stagg Bowl.
This year’s team will get a similar chance, hosting HSU in Belton on Nov. 8 in Week 9. But it’s clear something significant will need to change between now and then, even with the regular season already half-old, if UMHB hopes to flip the script against the Cowboys in the same way the 2004 team did.
“You’re already into Week 5,” Harmon said, when asked about a fix and potentially “going back to the drawing board” on offense. “I think you’ve got what you’ve got. Credit to their defense, and being able to change the pictures on a No. 2 quarterback. We just weren’t prepared enough, or weren’t confident enough. We just didn’t execute.”
Mouser made his first career start at quarterback for The Cru in place of an injured Kirkland Michaux, who was in concussion protocol. Harmon said Michaux’s injury from last week’s win over ETBU was initially limited to “bruised ribs”, but that changed on Tuesday. “He came back Tuesday, and said he had some brain fog,” Harmon added. “So to be safe, we kept him out.”
Mouser had seen action in each of UMHB’s three prior games, coming off the sidelines at various points against UW-Whitewater, Mars Hill, and ETBU. But he struggled on Saturday, unable to find much success through the air against a motivated HSU defense that was relentless and unforgiving from start to finish. By halftime, the Crusader passing attack had mustered just 46 yards, with Mouser 9-of-18 passing. He finished 16-of-30 for 101 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
“Every single drive, it’s one play at a time,” said HSU linebacker Kaiden Roden, who had 12 tackles, a pass breakup, and the key first quarter fumble recovery. “Obviously when you do get up on somebody, you know [you’re in position to win]. But at the same time, our mentality isn’t that. Our mentality is, ‘go, go, go.'”
Only 11 months before, Roden and his teammates had watched UMHB celebrate on the field at Shelton Stadium, the same UMHB team the Cowboys had twice beaten during the regular season. It was a letdown, a gut punch, and in a way, it seemed HSU took it to heart. That wasn’t the motivation on Saturday, Roden and HSU head coach Jesse Burleson both said, but everyone in the program knew how the last meeting between The Cru and Cowboys in Abilene turned out. Like the fumble recovery-turned-touchdown in the first quarter, HSU made sure it didn’t make the same mistakes twice.
“Last year, the things they did to us, our fans, our logo; we felt disrespected,” Roden added. “But at the end of the day, it’s us against us. That’s all that really matters.”
Wearing its all-black uniform combo for the third-straight season against UMHB, HSU brought a certain imposing presence that The Cru never seemed to counter. It started with the game’s first play, when Mouser had to fall on a bobbled snap and take a nine-yard loss. It continued through the way Garcia ran for 103 yards in the first half, ducking, cutting, and zig-zagging his way through a sea of defenders wearing purple and white. And it showed up later, in plays like Harrison Foster’s fourth-quarter pick-six, when he jumped in front of a 4th-and-7 pass intended for B.J. Stewart, and turned up the sideline for a 65-yard return that put HSU up 34-0.
“I didn’t have to say a word,” Burleson responded, when asked what he said at halftime, with HSU already in control. “As soon as we were going in at the half, our guys were taking care of it. And I think that’s the difference right there. It’s not a coach having to tell them, ‘Hey, you need to do this and you need to do that,’ because they know what to do. They know what the expectation and the standard is. The standard is their best. And if they’re not playing their best, it’s not good enough.”
UMHB had a few opportunities to turn it around, but couldn’t overcome either self-inflicted miscues or the consistency of HSU’s balanced offense, which averaged 5.7 yards per play. One such chance, Harmon pointed out afterwards, came with 6:44 left in the third quarter, when Ross sacked Brown for a seven-yard loss on second down. But it was negated when the penalty flag came in, calling Ross for grabbing Brown’s facemask. The 15-yard penalty pushed HSU across midfield, and from there, the Cowboys ran the ball eight straight times. Braylon Henry eventually scored from one yard out, giving HSU its lone offensive touchdown of the second half. The 13-play, 67-yard drive was the longest of the day, yardage-wise, for either offense, and spanned 6:12.
“To me, that was the biggest momentum [change], because that was the only [offensive] touchdown in the second half, and we had some momentum going,” Harmon said. “That was our chance. We couldn’t afford to lose time. They went on a long drive and got points out of it. That just killed our opportunity to come back.”
HSU finished with 215 rushing yards, relying on its run game for much of the afternoon. Most of Garcia’s touches came in the first half, followed by Henry picking up where his senior teammate left off, adding 60 yards on 11 carries. It was a contrast to the situation when the Crusaders ran the ball, aiming for similar success to what The Cru got a week ago in its 284-yard rushing output at ETBU. Instead of cutting through the black jerseys and into space upfield, they seemed to run into a brick wall, a credit to an HSU defensive front that tallied 6.0 tackles for loss, amounting to 33 yards. UMHB finished with 45 yards, averaging 1.7 yards per carry in its second-lowest rushing total of the season.
Carson Horton showed one of the few bright spots for UMHB’s offense in the loss, as the Tulsa transfer got his first opportunity of the season at quarterback on The Cru’s final two drives. Horton completed passes of 18, 2, 8, and 12 yards on his team’s lone scoring drive, with the last completion—caught by Isaiah Nesmith to the HSU 9-yard line—putting UMHB in the red zone for the first time. While Horton didn’t finish the drive, limping off the field after scrambling for a short gain, he showed promise in his limited action, and completed UMHB’s longest pass of the day for 18 yards. Ultimately, it set up Mouser’s 8-yard touchdown pass to Stewart, which snapped the Cowboys’ shutout bid.
Up Next
Now tasked with rebounding after a deflating loss, UMHB heads into a four-game homestand, hosting Texas Wesleyan, Howard Payne, ETBU, and Hardin-Simmons over the next four weeks. Next week’s 2 p.m. homecoming game coincides with The Cru’s final non-conference game of 2025, as NAIA Texas Wesleyan travels to Belton with a three-game win streak in tow. The Rams, ranked No. 20 in the NAIA Coaches Poll last week, are 4-2 overall, with a 4-0 record in Sooner Athletic Conference play.
| Box Score | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Final |
| UMHB | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| HSU | 14 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 34 |
