Sam Houston Bearkats 2026 Season Preview

Longo's Year Two Test

A 2-10 finish with a 1-7 mark in Conference USA is a rough on-field ledger for Phil Longo's first year, and the No. 136 power rating shows how far off the pace Sam Houston sits entering his second season. There is no accumulated track record to lean on here, just a first-year sample that needs correcting in year two. The 2026 story is whether Longo's offense can generate enough improvement to make that debut look like a starting point rather than a preview of more of the same.

Nowhere to Go But Up

Sam Houston's offense finished 129th in points per scoring opportunity and 136th on third down, numbers that explain a 2-10 season better than any recruiting card could. Landyn Locke, back after a 765-yard, 4-TD, 4-INT stretch, is projected to run it again in year two under Phil Longo, and the bar for improvement is simply cutting down the empty trips inside enemy territory. The defense allowed 483 yards and 37.8 points a game, so even a modest offensive uptick from Locke gets buried unless the stop unit finds more than 100th-ranked sack production.

Landyn Locke takes the first-team reps into fall camp after a 2025 that produced 765 yards, 4 touchdowns and 4 picks behind an offense that finished 136th in third-down rate and 129th in points per scoring chance, but this is a front-runner situation, not a coronation. Sam Houston shipped out Hunter Watson's 1,108 yards and Mabrey Mettauer's snaps, and Phil Longo added Carrollton's Mason Holtzclaw and Melissa's Brett Holloway to push Locke and DJ Bailey in camp. The bet for year two under Longo is that Locke's returning reps outweigh an unproven camp field, but a 36.9% success rate offense gives him little margin to hold the job by default.

Landan Brown (487 yards, 5 TD) and Alton McCaskill (371 yards, 1 TD) both come back to a run game that actually worked relative to the rest of this offense, ranking 98th in rushing yards per game while the passing attack sat 110th and the whole unit finished 127th in scoring. Losing Elijah Green's 391 yards stings, but Brown and McCaskill combined already outproduced him last fall, and three-star signees Kaden Winkfield and Demetrius Dowdy add bodies rather than urgency. The bigger question is whether Phil Longo's offense can turn that ground production into more than 22.2% third-down conversions and 2.79 points per scoring chance.

Sam Houston brings back its entire receiving room, led by Grady O'Neill's 38 catches and Chris Reed's 460 yards and 5 touchdowns, but that continuity sat inside an offense that ranked 136th in third-down rate and 129th in points per scoring opportunity, so more of the same catches will not fix what actually broke the 2025 attack. The bet for 2026 is that Wisconsin transfer Kyan Berry-Johnson and NC State transfer Christian Zachary add the explosive element Kamari Maxwell's 4 touchdowns on just 22 catches hinted at without enough volume around him. None of the new pieces have logged a college snap, which means Phil Longo's passing game still has to prove it can turn talent into third-down conversions, not just yards after catch.

Sam Houston is rebuilding this position almost from scratch, having lost its top three producers in Rayfield Lotten, Austin Smith and Dylan Burk, and the answer is arriving via the portal rather than from the returning group. Max Whisner, in from Akron, brings actual production (4 catches, 36 yards, 1 TD) that none of the returning tight ends besides Matt Smith (3 catches, 13 yards, 1 TD) can claim, and he projects as the clearest receiving threat on a unit also adding Jack Merryman and Brock Kuhl. With an offense that ranked 129th in points per scoring opportunity and 136th on third down in 2025, Whisner's chain-moving ability matters more than his modest raw numbers suggest.

Sam Houston allowed 35 sacks and posted a 36.9% success rate last season, numbers that explain why Phil Longo went shopping in the portal for five new bodies up front. Denell Nix Jr. arrives from App State to handle tackle, while Josiah Chenault (Kennesaw State) and Elijah Collins (Western Carolina) come in as interior options alongside true freshmen Myles Joseph and Tr'e Williams. With 8 linemen gone and no clear returning starters to lean on among names like Jeremiah Edmond and Zo'Maryon Bryan, this is effectively a new front five, and whether that porous 2025 line improves depends on how fast the transfers gel rather than on continuity.

A defense that allowed 208 rushing yards per game and 6.97 yards per play last season loses its most disruptive lineman in Christopher Eaton Jr., whose 5 sacks and 9 TFL topped the room, so the line leans on volume over experience in 2026. Dylan Frazier (41 tackles, 4 TFL) and Chauncey Chidi (2.5 sacks, 3.5 TFL) return as the anchors, but the real bet is on three unproven newcomers, Uzziah Warmate, Jarra Anderson and Justin Terrell, plus edge addition Zion Taylor from Houston, none of whom have logged a college snap up front. With a unit that ranked 128th in rushing yards allowed and 89th in tackles for loss, Sam Houston needs its transfers to hit the ground faster than last year's group did.

Antavious Fish's 78 tackles and 5.5 TFL walk out the door, and Sam Houston answers by importing four unproven linebackers, Elijah Groves, Stacy Bey, Brian Bates and Ryan Mallory, none of whom carry a prior stat line. That's a bet that Dean Ford, who posted 32 tackles and 6 TFL, and Ca'lub Holloway can anchor the room while the newcomers catch up, because a defense that allowed 483 yards per game and stopped runs at just 17.2% needs answers now, not a redshirt year. With Tokyo Gordon still finding his footing at 19 tackles, the group's floor rests on Ford and Holloway carrying the load into fall.

Tyler Bailey's 45 tackles anchor a secondary that gave up 276 passing yards per game a year ago, and the fix is volume, not just talent, with five incoming defensive backs including CJ June and Jabaric Sullivan from The Woodlands joining Dravon Wilson and Jace Arnold on the back end. None of the newcomers carry meaningful tackle production, so Bailey, Wilson and Arnold have to hold the group together while Robert McFarland and Marcus Bourda Jr. try to crack the lineup. The larger issue is structural, a defense that ranked 133rd in passing yards allowed and 136th in total yards allowed needs more than fresh faces at corner and safety to climb out of the bottom third of the country.

Christian Pavon's 40 points and 51-yard long are gone, and RJ Lopez made just 3 of 6 tries before also departing, wiping out the entire proven placekicking résumé. Nico Ottomanelli, Tate Ryan and Pittsburgh transfer Sam Carpenter arrive with no on-field track record to point to, so the job is a blank slate. Cal Joseph's steady leg stays put after 63 punts at a 38.1 average, but Curtis Gerrand's 43-yard average walks out the door too, leaving Sam Houston needing its new kickers to hit field goals nobody has proof they can make.

A Clean Slate at QB

Sam Houston is scrapping both quarterbacks who steered a 2-10 team, with Hunter Watson and Mabrey Mettauer both gone, handing the offense to Landyn Locke, who threw for 765 yards and 4 touchdowns in relief snaps last fall. The defense loses its tackling anchors in Antavious Fish and CJ Brown, and a 126th-ranked class won't patch that hole with blue-chip bodies, so the 20 transfers matter more than the recruiting rank suggests. Zion Taylor arrives from Houston to rush the edge and Brian Bates comes in from Delaware State to fill a linebacker room that lost its top two tacklers, and how fast those newcomers gel will decide whether Phil Longo's second year looks meaningfully different from his first.

Landyn Locke's Growth

Landyn Locke threw for 765 yards with as many interceptions as touchdowns a year ago, and now he is projected to take over the whole offense after Hunter Watson's departure. Sam Houston has real weapons back in Chris Reed, Grady O'Neill, Landan Brown and Alton McCaskill, so if Locke cuts down the turnovers that plagued him and Watson alike, that skill talent finally has a quarterback capable of turning touches into points instead of empty possessions.

Backing the Bearkats Is a Loss

Sam Houston did not just lose in 2025, it lost bettors money doing it, covering just 25% of the time overall and a brutal 17% as a road underdog. The number that should scare anyone chasing a bounce-back angle is the after-a-loss mark: 2-7 against the spread following a defeat, meaning this team did not tighten up in response to adversity, it unraveled further under Phil Longo in year one. Until Longo's second season shows Sam Houston can string together competitive losses instead of spiraling ones, the market has every reason to keep hanging points on the Bearkats.