Football 9.8.22

The Chris Hatcher Show: Sept. 8, 2022

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Each week during the 2022 season, we will release The Chris Hatcher Show. The show, hosted by Kevin Blackwell and featuring head football coach Chris Hatcher, will look back at the previous week's football game and look forward to the upcoming contest.

Samford is coming off a 27-17 upset victory of No. 8 Kennesaw State in the opening game of the season at Seibert Stadium.

The defeat of Kennesaw State was the Bulldogs' first win over a top 10 opponent since downing Wofford in 2018 and catapulted Samford into the 25th position in this week's Stats Perform FCS Top 25 for the first time since 2018.

"I was really pleased with the way our guys kept playing the next play. We found ourselves a couple times, especially at the beginning of the third quarter, where Kennesaw had overcome the deficit and taken the lead, Hatcher said. "We just kept playing and we made the plays at the opportune times throughout the course of the ballgame."

In his Bulldog debut, Michael Hiers threw for nearly 300 yards and four touchdowns on his way to being named Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Week.

"He has been very solid and efficient throughout spring ball and camp. He has a great grasp of the offense, has a veteran offensive line with a lot of returns from last season that are very seasoned in front of him and then some really good receivers. Of course having Jay Stanton, who had a really good game as well, makes the quarterback's life easier," Hatcher said. "He was efficient, he threw some really good plays, made some good decisions on some of our RPO calls and I couldn't be happier for him."

The receiving duo of Kendall Watson and Chandler Smith each hauled in two touchdown passes in the victory.

"Both of those guys played very unselfishly throughout the course of the game. I thought those two, along with all the other receivers blocked extremely well. Kendall broke out of the gates early. He had a bunch of catches, the ball was going his way, he was the hot guy," Hatcher said. "At Halftime, we talked about Chandler not having any catches. He only had a couple, but he made those count."

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and @SamfordFootball (Twitter).

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Players Mentioned

#0 Chandler Smith: WR; 5' 10"; Senior

#20 Jay Stanton: RB; 6' 0"; Senior

#84 Kendall Watson: WR; 5' 10"; Graduate Student

#10 Michael Hiers: QB; 6' 1"; Junior

Players Mentioned

#0 Chandler Smith
: 5' 10"; Senior
: WR

#20 Jay Stanton
: 6' 0"; Senior
: RB

#84 Kendall Watson
: 5' 10"; Graduate Student
: WR

#10 Michael Hiers
: 6' 1"; Junior
: QB

Samford University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Players Mentioned