BEAUMONT, Texas – The Lamar University football team will look to make it two in a row Saturday when they travel to Houston, Texas to take on the Houston Christian Huskies. Fresh off a shutout win over Lincoln (Calif.) University last week in Beaumont – the program's first shutout victory since 2014 – the Cardinals will now look to pick up their first conference win of the season.
 
To do that, the Cardinals (1-3) will have to go through an HCU squad that just sent a message to the rest of the league when they went to preseason favorite Southeastern Louisiana last week and dropped a 34-19 decision on the Lions.
 
With Huskies victory, they jumped to the top of the conference standings, while several other schools open up league play this week.
 
The Huskies (2-2/1-0 SLC) used a dominant ground attack to put Southeastern away. Led by Darryle Evans' 173 yards on 21 carries, the Huskies racked up nearly 270 rushing yards in the contest (5.8 ypc) and never trailed.
 
Saturday's contest will present an interesting matchup within the matchup – as HCU brings the league's top two rushers into the game Champ Dozier (73.5 ypg) and Evans (70.0 ypg), and the Cardinals have the league's No. 3 rusher in junior Khalan Griffin. A former Rice transfer, Griffin is coming off one of the best games of his career too recording 117 yards in the win over Lincoln – his third 100-yard effort of his career – and enters the week third in the SLC averaging 66.3 yards per game.
 
In addition to the Huskies' ability to run the ball, they're also the league's top team at stopping the run through the first four games of the season. Houston Christian is holding opponents to just 124 yards rushing per game. Despite HCU's ability to run the ball, the Cardinals enter the weekend second in the Southland in terms of time of possession (31:25), while HCU is seventh.
 
When looking at the passing game, it's the exact opposite. The Cardinals lead the Southland surrendering a league low 110 yards per game, while the Huskies are eighth in the SLC giving up nearly 285 passing yards per game.
 
The series, which began in 2014, has been pretty evenly split with the Cardinals having won four of the seven meetings. The Cardinals are 2-1 (.667) all-time in games played in Houston but HCU has won the last two meetings overall, including a three-point decision in Beaumont last season.
 
Saturday's game is slated for a 6 p.m. kick off from Husky Stadium. It will be broadcast live on Newstalk 560 KLVI and streamed live on ESPN+.