Texas Wesleyan: College football’s highest-scoring team resides in Fort Worth, not Austin
The nation’s No. 1 college football offense doesn’t reside in Austin or Tuscaloosa, Ala., or Columbus, Ohio.
It resides in Fort Worth and belongs to Texas Wesleyan University.
The Rams’ scoring average of 60.9 points per game is the highest in college football. Higher than any team playing in the NCAA, regardless of division.
And the highest in the NAIA, where the Rams compete.
First-year head coach Brad Sherrod has lifted the program to unprecedented heights. They take their 8-0 record and national No. 9 ranking into their final home game on Saturday against Langston (2 p.m. at Crowley ISD Multi-Purpose Stadium).
“We got good players to be honest with you, we got a real good quarterback, a good receiving corps and we have a really good running back,” Sherrod said. “When you have talent like that with the experiences these guys have, you should have some success, and they’ve taken advantage and used their experiences as they should and coach [Fran] Johnson has done a great job of getting the ball [to] the right guys.”
Quarterback Carson Rodgers, a junior from Spring, who has thrown for 2,255 yards with 20 touchdowns and six interceptions, leads the offense.
Running back Ernest Ceaser is a senior who hails from Beaumont and leads the team’s rushing attack with 661 yards and a whopping 27 touchdowns, which leads all NAIA running backs.
The team also has two of the NAIA’s most explosive receivers, AJ Bobb and Michael Banks.
From Fort Worth, Banks is a senior who leads the country in yards per catch average at 30.4 and has 26 receptions for 791 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Bobb, a senior from Houston, is third in the country with 22.8 yards per catch and has caught 36 passes for 819 yards with eight touchdowns.
Banks spoke on how the wideouts have been able to be so dominant this season.
“I feel like Coach Johnson set us up, you know, and put us in good, good positions to make the plays. I also feel like the chemistry with the receiving corps and Carson, we continue to get stronger week in and week out,” Banks said.
Rodgers says the plethora of weapons make his job easier because someone is always open.
“It’s great, in our offense. really, everyone eats, we don’t scheme up for specific guys. We run our plays depending on what the defense is doing, and I just take what the defense gives me,” Rodgers said. “Obviously, it’s nice knowing that you have weapons out there, and when the defense gives you what you want, it’s hard to be wrong.”
Rodgers also complimented the defense for consistently setting the offense up in beneficial situations. The Rams’ defense leads the Sooner Athletic Conference in sacks (31) and is tied for the lead in interceptions (17).
“We do a really good job of playing all three phases. So I mean, our defense is setting us up inside the red zone multiple times, our special teams give us great field possession all the time. So I really give the credit to the special teams and defense for putting us in those situations and we just go do what we do,” said Rodgers.
Sherrod praised the pass defense for how it’s been able to stifle opponents and keep the offense in favorable situations.
“All starts up front. Let me start there because we’re getting pressure on that quarterback, which means getting that ball out of his hands faster,” Sherrod said. “So that ball is coming out a lot faster. So I guess, we have a chance to react to the ball and intercept it. So we talked about those things and creating turnovers, which gets the ball back to our offense and gives them a chance to score, and that’s a big part of our philosophy, is just creating turnovers.”
Sherrod took over after Joe Prud’homme stepped down from the head coach position during the offseason after restarting the program in 2016 after 76 years of dormancy.
How has TWU focused amid the best season in program history and on the cusp of making its first postseason appearance?
“Something that coach Sherrod shared with us is don’t bite the cheese,” Bobb said. “That’s basically saying, like, no matter what a team’s record is, and no matter who they played or what the score came out to be, treat every week, like a championship. Week in and week out I feel like that’s what we go into every week like we have a championship mindset.”
Bobb knows what making the postseason would mean but said the team is focusing on the opponents in front of them.
“It’s never been done in school history,” said Bobb. “But it’s these next two games, man. I mean, we not looking for, we’re not looking past these two games to get the playoff. The last time we did that, we lost the playoffs.”
Banks said he would relish the opportunity to play in the postseason after the hard work the team has put in over the past four years but concurred with Bobb that there is still work to be done.
After playing Langston on Saturday, the Rams finish their regular season Nov. 16 at Louisiana Christian University.
A win over Langston would secure the regular season conference title, and a win the following week would give TWU it’s first undefeated season in school history.
Sherrod gushed about the work ethic and team culture that he sees being fostered.
“They come out there and go to work when it’s time to work, and to me, that’s that’s the joy,” said Sherrod, “I’m hoping that we’ll build a culture passed down to the next class and the next class, and hopefully we can have a program here year in year out that’s successful, but it’s only gonna happen because of the work these guys are putting in the foundation they’ve laid and trying to pass that on to the to the younger kids. ... I’m just proud the way they work and come in every day.”
Sherrod hopes that the team’s success can not only elevate the football program but put a spotlight on the university.
“Our success, that we’re having right now really is this overall thing for the university, and we want to really increase our brand, our university and what we stand for and our philosophy about educating students,” said Sherrod, “We want to make sure we’re pushing that brand out into the community across the state of Texas, because we have something special to offer here.”
This story was originally published November 7, 2024 at 9:05 AM.
