3 days Ago
MURRAY — Throughout the days leading into Saturday’s Family Weekend football clash with Mississippi Valley State, Murray State Head Coach Jody Wright was preaching a specific theme. “Enough is enough.” The Racers had made enough mistakes for a full season in a disappointing loss last Saturday to Butler in the home opener of Wright’s first season in Murray.
So, Wright cracked the whip with his team of 65 new players, most of whom had only been together the past two months. It seemed to work. The Racers exploded from the starting gate Saturday at Roy Stewart Stadium, scoring 21 points in the opening quarter in routing the Delta Devils, 59-8, and giving Wright his first win as the Racer skipper with the highest point total for a Murray State team since 2019.
“Very bad,” was how Wright described the need for the Racers (now 1-2) to beat Miss Valley (0-3). “I told our guys that our football program, unfortunately, had lost nine straight football games (dating back to last season) and I said somebody has got to draw a line in the sand. It’s got to stop, and I think we had some guys step up and say, ‘Hey! Not anymore!’” Count starting quarterback Jayden Johannsen as being one of those players.
After a rough first two games, he gave Racer Nation a glimpse of his full array of skill by throwing for two touchdowns. His second pass of the night put the Racers on the scoreboard less than two minutes into the game, a 36-yard connection to receiver Justice Hill, who fans probably remember for his role as the starting point guard for the 2022 Murray State NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament team that won the fifth game for the program in that event. “That one felt good.
I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I got here (only days before the end of preseason practice),” said Hill, who had been slated to play this season for San Diego after concluding his basketball career at Loyola-Marymount near Los Angeles. “We hadn’t really thrown the ball a lot until tonight. I think, after tonight, will be a good steppingstone for us looking forward.
” However, Hill’s score with 13:52 left in the first quarter was only the beginning. Two minutes later, the Racers had a defensive score as linebacker Tyson Minguez took advantage of the ball basically slipping out of the throwing hand of Miss Valley quarterback Jayden Sisk with a three-yard scoop-and-score. That was followed by the Racers’ third touchdown near the end of the quarter as Johannsen showed his running ability with a five-yard sweep to the right side and a 21-0 lead.
“We had a lot of anger to take out after the last two weeks, so we came out and started right from the kickoff (with a huge hit from special teams coverage men Jayson Coley and Andrew Long on the Miss Valley returner at his 13-yard line setting the tone for the evening),” said Murray State linebacker James Camden, who led a defensive effort that would hold the Delta Devils to only 220 total yards with 12 tackles, six of which were solo, a half-sack and one tackle for loss. “Yeah, that first kickoff, we get inside the 20 with a big hit like that, go three-and-out, so we were foot on the gas from the start.” The Racers added two more scores in the second quarter with running back Juwaun Northington sweeping five yards to the right side and kicker James London hitting his career-long 54-yard field goal that led to a 31-8 halftime lead.
Running back Kywon Morgan then started the second half in style with a 46-yard burst to paydirt in which he broke several tackles along the way to build the lead to 38-8. Johannsen (169 yards through the air) would hit former Mayfield standout Cam Neely for a 38-yard scoring strike about midway through the third to push the lead to 45-8. Then, then it was the reserves’ turn to shine as backup QB Jameson Holcomb (son of former Middle Tennessee star and NFL veteran Kelly Holcomb) hit receiver Marcus Floyd on a nice 15-yard scoring strike early in the fourth quarter and running back Kevin Emmanuel found the end zone from five yards in the waning minutes of the game.
The 59 points are the most the Racers have scored in a single game since 2019, when they hit that exact number twice in wins over Pikeville and Morehead State..
