G5 Football Daily

TAKEAWAYS: FIU Falls On Vice Night, Sam Houston Going Bowling

Chayden Peery was unable to notch the Panthers win number three of the season

Kevin Barral

FIU Athletics
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The first score of Tuesday night's game wouldn't come until the third quarter of action when the Sam Houston Bearkats would take a 7-0 lead.

The Chayden Peery-led Panthers tied the game with 14:55 left in the fourth quarter, but the Bearkats put the game on ice with a 20-yard field goal in the final two minutes. Sam Houston State would notch their sixth win of the season by a final score of 10-7.

Scoreless First Half

For FIU, it marked the first time since that 2017 that the game was scoreless going into the half.

Going into the game, the Bearkats had the third-best rushing offense in Conference USA. In the first half of action, Sam Houston only ran for 69 yards. Part of that has to do with quarterback Hunter Watson missing this game due to injury.

Chayden Peery Makes His Collegiate Debut

With 1:45 left in the second quarter, FIU made a quarterback change, going with junior Chayden Peery. He ended the night completing seven passes for 58 yards and one touchdown.

In the fourth quarter of action, Peery connected with Eric Rivers on a 28-yard touchdown pass, which tied the game at seven apiece. This marked Peery's first collegiate passing touchdown. For Rivers, it would be his fifth touchdown reception of the season, which now leads the conference.

"Thought he was the heart of a lion," said FIU head coach Mike MacIntyre of Peery. "I mean, the way he fought and the way he ran, got the first downs and kept competing. The throw he made at the end and they called holding, I mean he had to sit in there and do that after having some incompletions. I thought that was big. Now, it didn't come to fruition for him. The penalty call, but I thought that showed a lot of guts. Excited about what I saw there."

MacIntyre also confirmed that Jenkins wasn't removed from the game due to an injury, but just overall lack of practice because of the injury.

"He was a little erratic," said MacIntyre. "He didn't get to practice as much this week and just wasn't in the flow and felt like we had a better chance going with Chayden. All credit to Keyone. He just didn't get to practice. He fought through that injury and just wasn't feeling it. We decided to go with Chayden and thought that gave us the best chance."

MacIntyre confirmed in his press conference that Jenkins will be the starting quarterback against New Mexico State.

The Bearkats Are Going Bowling

For the first time in program history, the Sam Houston State Bearkats have clinched bowl eligibility. After a tough 3-9 season in 2023, the Bearkars bounced back and are now 6-2 with four more games left to play.

"Sometimes you score 40 points in the second, third and fourth quarters to win a game," said Bearkats head coach KC Keeler following the game. "Sometimes you need to play unbelievable defense and make two big plays on special teams. We got the punt block and then we kicked the field goal to ice it. What a great win, what a historic win. We're going bowling."

The Pressure Is On

With the loss, FIU falls to 2-6 on the season. To make a bowl game, FIU will need to win the four remaining games left in the season. For MacIntyre, he feels the pressure.

"I feel pressure every game, honestly, I really do," said MacIntyre. "We definitely want to go to a bowl game. I've said all year long, we can beat anybody and anybody can beat us. It didn't used to be that way. We couldn't beat everybody, and now we can. I believe we're going to line up and go play New Mexico State and we're going to believe we're going to win."

FIU will take on the New Mexico State Aggies on Tuesday, October 29 at 7:00pm ET. The game will be streamed on CBS Sports Network. As for Sam Houston, they improve to 6-2 on the season and will welcome the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs that same day.

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Kevin Barral
KEVIN BARRAL

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