Following a bye week for the Colonels, the Nicholls State football team opens conference play on a purple field this weekend when the team goes against Central Arkansas.
In practices during the bye week, head coach Charlie Stubbs said the team focused on the fundamentals, as well as getting younger players involved in practice and tried to shake the injury bug.
“We worked hard, but what we tried to do was lighten it up a little bit and put smiles on their faces,” Stubbs said. “During a bye week, we have little team competitions.”
The Colonels took part in team competitions such as fielding balls near the end zone. The offense and defense competed against one another in trying to catch balls from a football pitch machine that sends the ball 50 yards down the field.
This was all after the Colonels defeated Evangel 73-17 in their home opener.  But the blowout victory is the furthest thing from the mind of junior quarterback Landry Klann.
“I think we needed a good performance,” Klann said. “We can’t get too high on it, but it was good for everybody to have a good game.”
Klann was nearly perfect in the game against Evangel. He completed 15 of 19 passes, threw for 262 and posted three touchdowns in the victory.
Klann said that after the first two games against FBS opponents, the execution was supposed to go up for this offense, and thus it did. Nicholls set a program record of 751 yards of total offense, and Stubbs was pleased.
“The matchups were good,” Stubbs said. “We executed well on a lot of things. Defense played well in the second half, and the offense executed well. We were able to run and throw the ball effectively.”
Moving forward, the Colonels have their first conference foe on their mind, and Stubbs realizes that everything the Colonels have done so far in their first three games have no effect on conference play.
“In conference, you’re focused on conference games. Yeah, we wanted to win them all, but as long as we learned something, so be it,” Stubbs said.
Central Arkansas, a team that was picked to finish third in the conference back in July by the coaches and sports information directors, sports a record of 3-2 and are coming off of a 42-37 loss against Stephen F. Austin, who was picked to finish second in the conference in the same poll. The Bears are 0-1 in conference following the loss.
Stubbs said the team must take care of the football, execute and minimize penalties to play with one of the best teams in the conference. If the team does that, Stubbs said the Colonels will have a great chance to win the game.