MAGNOLIA, Ark. - Riding a three-game winning streak, Southern Arkansas Football heads back to Arkadelphia as a high stakes affair awaits second-year head coach Brad Smiley's Muleriders in Week 7. Kickoff from Carpenter-Haygood Stadium at GeoSurfaces Field is set for 2 p.m. Live coverage links are available at www.MuleriderAthletics.com. 

LAST WEEK
"Home is where the Muleriders are." That was the theme of the week as Southern Arkansas University celebrated its 108th Homecoming. On Saturday afternoon inside Wilkins Stadium at Rip Powell Field, home was often the end zone as the Muleriders notched nine trips to paydirt, highlighted by seven rushing scores, and the most rushing yards in a single game since 2000 to handle Oklahoma Baptist 63-24 in Great American Conference Week 6 action. SAU improved to 5-1 in year two under head coach Brad Smiley as the Muleriders matched last season's win total with the victory. The Muleriders scored a pair of touchdowns in each of the first three quarters, before capping the final 15 minutes of play with a trio of touchdowns which included the first career scoring efforts from true freshman running back Arkez Gomez and redshirt freshman linebacker Philip Joest. SAU placed three backs over 100 yards led by Gomez's career-high 123 yards. Senior quarterback OB Jones scored three rushing touchdowns. Southern Arkansas totaled 592 yards on 80 plays which included 477 yards on the ground on 65 rushes. The rushing total is the most for SAU since November 11, 2000 when the Muleriders ran up 685 yards on the ground on 65 carries in an 86-27 win at Henderson State. SAU cashed in on all five redzone trips, was an impressive 12-of-15 on third down and converted its lone fourth down attempt. SAU's 63 points on Saturday are its most since the 2014 season finale: a 66-42 Battle of the Timberlands win at Arkansas-Monticello on November 15.

HIGH STAKES IN CLARK COUNTY
>>> Week 7 of the Great American Conference slate sends (RV) Southern Arkansas back to Arkadelphia for its biggest test of the season as #18 Henderson State awaits in the latter's Homecoming. 
>>> SAU meets a ranked HSU squad for a fourth-straight meeting and for the eighth time in its ten previous GAC matchups. The lone years, 2017 and 2018, that HSU entered unranked, the Muleriders were receiving votes (2017) and ranked #21 (2018) in the country. 
>>> The Muleriders make a return trip to Arkadelphia for the second time this season which marks the second time in the past three seasons that SAU will have played both of Clark County's DII residents in Arkadelphia. Since 1990, Southern Arkansas has played twice in Arkadelphia in the same campaign five times: 1994, 1996, 2002, 2021 and 2023.
>>> It will be the 87th meeting on the gridiron between the Muleriders and the Reddies. HSU holds a 48-37-1 series advantage, has won seven of the ten previous GAC matchups and is a perfect 5-0 against SAU in Arkadelphia. Last fall, Southern Arkansas won over Henderson State for the first time in Magnolia since the 2005 season. SAU's other two GAC wins over the Reddies have come in the county over as the Muleriders bested HSU in El Dorado in 2016 and 2018.
>>> Since 2011, the Muleriders are 8-18 on the road against Natural State foes.
>>> As usual, the stakes are high as Saturday's winner will move into a tie for second place in the league standings. 

NOTABLES: SOUTHERN ARKANSAS
>>> Southern Arkansas boasts the nation's second-leading rushing attack at 287.5 yards per game; a mark that helps generate Division II's twelfth-highest total offense at 469.5 and a top 25 scoring mark nationally at 37.0 ppg. That high-powered attack has produced the fourth-most first downs in the country through six weeks at 153 and is responsible for a top 15 mark nationally in third-down conversion rate at 50%.
>>> The ground game has been led by senior quarterback OB Jones and junior running back Jariq Scales who have combined for 1,137 yards. Jones' 606 rank 12th nationally and Scales' 531 lands inside the top 25. 
>>> Jones ranks seventh nationally in scoring (10.0) and total points scored (60) and his 277.2 yards of total offense rank 22nd nationally. 
>>> Defensively, the Muleriders are allowing under 100 yards per game on the ground; a mark that ranks second in the GAC and 31st nationally. That success helps the unit carry a top 50 third-down defense at 33.7%. SAU also ranks in the top 50 nationally in sacks per game (2.50) and passing efficiency defense (115.5).
>>> Melvin Smith Jr. leads the GAC in passes defended at 1.8 per game which ranks fifth nationally. 
>>> Six Muleriders have registered double digit solo tackles this season and all six have at least 23.0 total tackles. Senior linebacker Jacob Berry leads with 34.0 total stops with two QBH and two pass breakups. 
>>> Southern Arkansas has recorded 44.0 tackles for loss (185) at 6.5 per game which ranks third in the GAC and 15.0 sacks (101) this season.

SAU BY THE NUMBERS
115.5- The team passing efficiency defense rating for SAU. The mark ranks fourth in the GAC and 46th nationally. The Muleriders have pressured opposing quarterbacks to the tune of 18 hurries, have picked off five passes and 29 pass breakups. HSU ranks 30th nationally in team passing efficiency (153.7) which is the third-best mark in the GAC. Melvin Smith Jr. leads the GAC in passes defended (11) which are the most by a Mulerider since Lorenzo Watkins' dozen in 2018. His 10 breakups are the most since Darren Crawford's 11 in 2015.
62- The number of all-purpose yards needed by junior Jariq Scales to reach 3,500 such yards and move into ninth place on the all-time list. He would become just the fifth player in Southern Arkansas' NCAA Division II membership to reach the number and among the fifth, he would be the third running back to do so and the third player in SAU's GAC Era. While 62 moves him to 3,500 and ninth, 308 yards would move him into third all-time. 
5.25- The average margin of defeat for the Muleriders in its last four road matchups with Henderson State. Despite a 28-0 lead, the Muleriders suffered a 56-49 loss in 2021, were edged 38-31 in 2019, lost 36-30 on ESPN3 in 2017 and suffered a narrow 29-28 defeat following a 15-play, 94-yard game-winning drive over the final 100 seconds in 2015. Conversely, Southern Arkansas' pair of wins over the Reddies in El Dorado came by an average of 23 points. SAU eyes its first road victory over the Reddies since a 31-27 decision in 2004. 

NOTABLES: HENDERSON STATE
>>> Henderson State enters Week 7 with the fifth-highest scoring offense in the GAC at 31.8 ppg and is holding opponents to the third-lowest average at 22.3.
>>> Andrew Edwards, a two-time GAC Player of the Week and the league's reigning top offensive player, is second in the conference in touchdown passes (13), passing yards (1,328) and efficiency (154.0).
>>> HSU ranks fourth in the GAC in passing yards per game at 221.3. The Reddies' 179.0 yards on the ground per game are the fifth-highest in the league. 
>>> The Reddies hold a top 50 mark in third down conversion percentage at 42.1%.
>>> Edwards leads the team in rushing at 41.5 yards per game and has accounted for half of the team's ten rushing scores. Three other HSU backs are averaging north of 30.0 yards per game. 
>>> Chris Hatzis is tops on the team in receiving yards per game at 65.0, leads with five touchdown catches and is one of two Reddie receivers with 22 or more catches trailing only Timieone Jackson's team-leading 28 grabs. 
>>> Statistically, the Reddies boast the league's top and the country's seventh-best front seven when it comes to getting to the quarterback. HSU's 3.5 sacks per game are the league's best and a top-ten mark nationally. A dozen different Reddies have recorded at least a half sack with Dylan Ndambuki leading with 4.5 (42) and Tyler Strain following with 3.5 (25) and Trenton Moore adding 3.0 (16).
>>> Jakob Neel is the top tackler with 38.0 stops on the season. Four other Reddie defenders have recorded at least twenty tackles. Moore leads with three QBH and four others follow with two each. 
>>> Kolby King handles the punting and place kicking duties for HSU. He averages 36.4 yards per punt and is 8-of-12 in field goals with  a long of 38. 

MOST RECENT MATCHUP (9-24-22)
In the first Magnolia meeting between the longtime Natural State foes since 2012, Southern Arkansas rode a solid passing attack and several timely defensive stands to knock off previously-unbeaten #24 Henderson State 28-24 in Great American Conference action in front of a rambunctious Family Day crowd inside Wilkins Stadium at Rip Powell Field. The win was the first for the Muleriders against the Reddies in Magnolia since 2005 and it evened the '22 record at 2-2, while HSU suffered its first defeat to move to 3-1 on the season. It was a back-and-forth affair worth the price of admission on Saturday night in Columbia County. The Muleriders passed for 308 yards on 34 attempts with 26 completions and four touchdowns. Southern Arkansas overcame two interceptions, both of which were thrown inside the Henderson State ten-yard line, and also withstood a Reddie passing attack that accumulated 331 yards through the air on 23-of-34 passing with 14.4 yards per completion and three touchdowns. Southern Arkansas was out-gained offensively by 108 yards in two less plays, but the difference for the Muleriders came on third-down as the host converted eight of its 13 opportunities, while the SAU defense allowed just three conversions in ten Reddie attempts. The Mulerider offensive line allowed just two sacks against a Henderson State pass rush that had recorded a program record 16 sacks through three games entering the Week 4 affair.

SERIES' MEMORABLE MOMENTS
WILD ONE IN 2012 The two sides totaled nearly 1,100 yards of offense as the contest saw a combined 102 pass attempts and 929 yards through the air with six passing touchdowns. Additionally, the matchup witnessed four missed PAT, one of which was returned 98 yards for two, a missed field goal, an interception return touchdown and a fumble return touchdown ESPN3 COMEBACK Southern Arkansas led by nine at 30-21 following a pick-six by Darren Crawford with 13 minutes to play. The Reddies would score the next 15 points as part of a 22-point fourth quarter to top the Muleriders in front of an ESPN3 audience REDDIES RALLY ON FINAL DRIVE SAU led by five late and opted to go for it on fourth down and two from the HSU7. The Muleriders' Michael Nunnery managed just one yard and with 1:40 remaining and the Muleriders leading 28-23, Henderson State embarked on a 15-play, 94-yard drive that ended with the Reddies' Dallas Hardison diving into the left pylon with no time left UPSET IN EL DORADO In the 2016 win over HSU in the Murphy USA Classic, SAU tallied over 500 yards of total offense as it knocked off the #15-ranked Reddies for the first time since 2005 OF NOTE The lone matchup in the series, which dates back to 1914, that did not have a victor was the 0-0 tie between the two sides on October 21, 1950 in Magnolia. Fifty years after the lowest scoring game in the series, the two programs collided in Arkadelphia on November 11, 2000 and Southern Arkansas blitzed HSU 86-27 in the series' highest scoring affair which witnessed the Muleriders accumulate 702 yards of total offense of which a program-record 637 yards was amassed on the ground. Last week, SAU rushed for its third-highest ground output in program history.