SPARTANBURG, S.C.—Samford freshman quarterback
Devlin Hodges completed 28-of-38 passes for 345 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Bulldog football team to a 37-27 Southern Conference win at Wofford Saturday afternoon at Gibbs Stadium.
With the win, Samford improves to 5-5 overall and 2-4 in SoCon play. Wofford falls to 4-6 overall and 2-4 in league play.
"I'm really proud of our team and our coaches," Samford head coach
Chris Hatcher said. "We've had a couple of times this year where we could have laid down because things didn't go our way. We played really solid football today. We forced a turnover or two, and in the second half we really dominated the game."
In addition to his passing numbers, Hodges rushed 18 times for 94 yards.
Kelvin McKnight caught eight passes for 94 yards and a touchdown.
Karel Hamilton had five catches for 82 yard and a touchdown, while
Emmanuel Obajimi caught four passes for 82 yards.
Denzel Williams rushed 15 times for 39 yards and a touchdown.
Justin Cooper led the Samford defense with 16 tackles, including 10 solo stops.
Roosevelt Donaldson had 11 tackles, while
Jamerson Blount had nine tackles and
Shaheed Salmon had seven stops, along with a fumble recovery.
For Wofford, Lorenzo Long rushed 24 times for 162 yards and a touchdown. Evan Jacks had 15 rushes for 115 yards and a touchdown for the Terriers.
Wofford took the lead first when Hunter Windham scored on a 15-yard run to give the Terriers an early 7-0 lead with 10:26 left in the first quarter. Samford tied the score when Hodges hit Hamilton for a 16-yard score to make the score 7-7 with 8:08 left in the opening period.
The Terriers took the lead again when Jacks scored on a three-yard run with 57 seconds left in the first quarter to make the score 14-7. Samford's
Anthony Pistelli kicked a 19-yard field goal to cut the Wofford lead to 14-10 with 13:06 left in the second quarter.
Samford took the lead for good when Williams scored on a six-yard run to give the Bulldogs a 17-14 lead with 10:49 to go in the second quarter. Pistelli added a 27-yard field goal to make the score 20-14 with 2:56 left in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, Hodges hit McKnight for an 11-yard touchdown to push the Samford lead to 27-14 with 8:39 to go in the quarter. Early in the fourth quarter, Pistelli added his third field goal of the game, this one from 19-yards out to make the score 30-14 with 14:56 left in the game.
Hodges then hit Williams for a six-yard touchdown pass to push the Samford lead to 37-14 with 13:25 to go in the contest.
Wofford added two final scores. Long scored on a five-yard run, and the two-point conversion attempt failed, making the score 37-20 with 8:17 to go. After Wofford recovered an on-side kick, Ray Smith scored on a three-yard run with 3:43 left to cut the lead to 37-27 with 3:43 to go. The Terriers attempted another on-side kick, but the ball went out of bounds, and Samford was able to run out the clock from there.
As a team, Samford finished with 496 yards of offense, while Wofford tallied 548 total yards. Wofford committed two turnovers in the game, while Samford had one turnover.
Samford will wrap up the 2015 season by playing at Mercer on Saturday, Nov. 21. Kickoff is set for 2 p.m. (CT) from Macon, Ga.
