Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks 2026 Season Preview

Carthel's Ceiling

Colby Carthel just ran the table in Southland play and pushed the Lumberjacks to an 11-3 finish, the kind of season that puts a program in the top five nationally by power rating. That gap between Stephen F. Austin's roster tier and its results is the whole story entering 2026, this is a staff that has already proven it can out-coach its level. The roster feed cannot confirm who is back, but the bar Carthel set with an unbeaten league slate is now the standard the program measures itself against.

Defense Sets the Bar

SFA's 2026 identity starts on defense, and the numbers explain the 11-3 run better than the record itself: a unit that allowed just 282 yards and 99 rushing yards per game, third nationally in yards per play allowed, isn't an accident, it's the foundation Colby Carthel builds around again. The offense was the fuel, not the polish, ranking 12th in scoring but sliding to 86th in explosiveness, meaning points came from volume and third-down conversion rather than big plays. With an experienced secondary anchoring that defense and the same discipline that made SFA the toughest unit in the country at keeping opponents off schedule, the formula for another Southland title run doesn't need reinvention, it needs the offense to find one more explosive gear.

Sam Vidlak threw for 2,686 yards and 22 touchdowns behind an offense that ranked 12th nationally in scoring, and none of that production is walking back through the door. Jacob Janecek arrives from Lovejoy with no prior college statistics to speak of, stepping into a system that moved the ball at 5.67 yards per play and converted 45.1% of third downs, but the explosiveness numbers were already a soft spot at 86th nationally. Colby Carthel's attack should still find the field, though the vertical spark that used to come with Vidlak's arm is the open question until Janecek proves he can supply it.

Jerrell Wimbley took his 1017 yards and 9 touchdowns out the door, and Richard Reese's 448 yards leave with him, gutting the backfield that helped SFA average 35.4 points per game in 2025. Colby Carthel rebuilds the room with transfers Joseph Dodds (104 rushing yards, 1 TD at Baylor) and Rickey Stewart Jr. from Texas, plus Isiah Reese out of Joe T. Robinson, while Caleb Crenshaw arrives as a high school signee from Austin Anderson. None of that group has produced meaningful college rushing yardage yet, so the ground game that ranked just 53rd nationally in rushing yards per game has to find its identity almost entirely through this new blood.

Kylon Harris walked away with 86 catches, 1,068 yards and 10 touchdowns off that 35.4-point-per-game attack, and nobody left in this room has caught a pass at this level to replace that kind of production. Colby Carthel went outside the roster to answer it, landing Miami (OH) transfer Cordale Russell, a four-star addition who steps into a passing game that ranked 36th nationally in yards per game but only 86th in explosiveness, meaning the ceiling issue was never volume, it was chunk plays. High school signee Cade Wallace, out of South Grand Prairie, gives Carthel another new body to develop, but Russell is the one who has to turn underneath volume into the big plays this offense was missing.

The tight end position was barely a factor in Colby Carthel's attack last season, with Lavar Lindo's single catch for 7 yards summing up how little the room contributed to a passing game that still managed 235 yards per game and a 45.1% third-down rate through its backs and receivers. Arizona State transfer Jayden Fortier arrives to change that equation, bringing a bigger body into a scheme that already ranks 12th nationally in scoring but sits just 86th in offensive explosiveness, an area a legitimate receiving tight end could immediately address. Fortier does not need huge numbers to matter here, just more than the room produced a year ago.

Colby Carthel's offense scored 35.4 points a game behind a line that allowed just 7 sacks, and 2026 rebuilds that group almost entirely through the portal rather than continuity. Six linemen who helped power an 11-3, 7-0 league run are out, including Chimdia Nwaiwu, Giovanny Alegria and Jake Henry, and the replacements arrive as a four-man tackle haul: Nick Henry from San Marcos, Sione Hingano from BYU, Evan Odom from Tulsa and Christian Pettway from North Texas, with John Como added inside from Pieper. That much outside talent installed at once matters more than any name lost, and the swing factor is whether that group can lift a run game that finished 53rd in rushing yards per game and an explosiveness mark that ranked 86th, because the passing attack and third-down rate were already ahead of the ground game last season.

Colby Carthel's front last season held opponents to 99 rushing yards a game and 4.51 yards per play, numbers that ranked 3rd nationally in both categories, but that stinginess walked out the door with Elijah Fields, Ky Thomas and Edward Bobino III, who combined for most of the unit's tackles for loss. The rebuild leans on the portal: Travon Sylvester arrives from UTSA and Landon Williams brings edge experience from New Mexico, both tasked with replacing production that vanished rather than adding to a deep room. Given how much of that rush defense was tied to the departed tackles, Sylvester's ability to hold up inside will decide whether SFA's line stays elite or just good.

Stephen F. Austin's defense stayed on schedule better than anyone in the country in 2025, holding foes to 4.51 yards per play, and that identity now has to survive without the linebacker corps that built it. Jaydon Southard and Aaron Austin, the two leading tacklers at the position, are both gone along with four others at the spot, a wholesale turnover Colby Carthel has to answer with Eli Ennis, arriving from UAB after posting 11 tackles and 1.5 sacks last season. Ennis brings pass-rush juice off the edge, but replacing the tackle volume Southard and Austin combined to produce is the real test for a front that ranked 3rd nationally in rushing yards allowed per game.

A secondary that held opponents to 183 passing yards a game and kept 4.51 yards per play off the board last season loses 12 defensive backs, including tackle producers Jalen Mayo and Kameron Reddic, off the SP+ top-ten unit Colby Carthel built in Nacogdoches. The fix comes through the portal: Avyonne Jones arrives after a 46-tackle season at Coastal Carolina to anchor the back end, with Chauncey Davis in from Colorado State and Marco Tyson from Old Dominion adding bodies at corner and safety. That group joins an experienced secondary already on campus, and given how disciplined this defense was at keeping opponents off schedule, the bar for 2026 is sustaining that identity, not rebuilding it from scratch.

Lachie Pozzobon's 41.8-yard average and Jacob Hand's perfect 4-of-4 clip on field goals both walk out the door, wiping out two settled specialist jobs from an 11-3, 7-0 conference run. Breck Chambers arrives from UTSA to handle the punting, a straightforward swap-in rather than a battle, while the placekicking chore has no listed answer yet. Whoever lands the field-goal job inherits a low-volume but reliable operation, and losing Hand's accuracy without a like-for-like replacement named is the real question mark here.

Joseph Dodds at Running Back

Jerrell Wimbley's 1,017 yards and 9 touchdowns walk out the door, and Baylor transfer Joseph Dodds, who managed just 104 yards and a single score in limited work, is the name on the depth chart to replace that entire load. Stephen F. Austin went 11-3 and ran the Southland at 7-0 with Wimbley pounding the rock, so asking a low-usage Power Four transfer to become a workhorse is the swing that decides whether this offense stays that physical. If Dodds can not scale up to lead-back volume, a 149th-ranked signing class offers little proven depth behind him to soften the drop-off.

Carthel's Home-Road Divide

Nacogdoches was a vault for Colby Carthel's group, covering at a 100% clip as a home favorite and going unbeaten straight up at 7-0, while the road version of this team looked nothing like it, covering just 33% away from home and 0-2 as a road underdog. That split, not the 11-3 record, is what bettors need to internalize for 2026 given an unbeaten conference mark built almost entirely at home. Until Stephen F. Austin proves it can cash tickets away from Homer Bryce Stadium, treat every road line with more caution than the overall number suggests.