Fort Hays State University will be hosting the annual spring game on Saturday, April 8. If recent years are any indication on what this season holds for the Tigers, fans will have something to look forward too. Every year since 2010 the Tigers have increased or equaled their win total from the previous season. Fort Hays has appeared in bowl games the past two seasons and even came away as champions this past season when they defeated Eastern New Mexico in the Heart of Texas Bowl. With all the success in recent years, the Tigers are setting the bar high, and expectations will continue to grow.<\/p>\n
What to watch for in 2017<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Key Returners<\/span><\/p>\n Jacob Mezera<\/em> – Quarterback – threw for over 2500 yards, 19 touchdowns passes<\/span><\/p>\n Charles Tigner<\/em> – Running Back – 453 receiving yards, 178 rushing yards, 8 total touchdowns <\/span><\/p>\n Kenneth Iheme<\/em> – Running Back – 526 rushing yards, 176 receiving yards, 4 total touchdowns \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Layne Bieberle<\/em> – Wide Receiver – 506 receiving yards, 7 touchdowns <\/span><\/p>\n Tyler Bacon<\/em> – Wide Receiver – 373 receiving yards, leading punt returner <\/span><\/p>\n Nathan Shepherd<\/em> – Defensive Line – 61 tackles, 3 sacks, 2 forced fumbles <\/span><\/p>\n Jose Delgado<\/em> – Linebacker – 114 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 1 interception, 1 forced fumble, and 1 blocked kick<\/span><\/p>\n Doyin Jibowu<\/em> – Defensive Back – 66 tackles, 1 sack, 3 pass breakups, 2 blocked kicks <\/span><\/p>\n Connor Shedeed<\/em> – Defensive Back – 55 tackles<\/span><\/p>\n Tanner Hoekman<\/em> – Defensive Back – 50 tackles, 2 interceptions <\/span><\/p>\n Brandon Brown<\/em> – Kicker\/Punter – 16-24 on field goals, 40-43 on extra points, 37 punts for 1495 yards (40.4 average) <\/span><\/p>\n Key Losses<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Shaquille Cooper<\/em> – Running Back – 971 rushing yards, 420 receiving yards, 11 total touchdowns<\/span><\/p>\n Malik Thomas<\/em> – Running Back – \u00a0224 rushing yards, 5 touchdowns<\/span><\/p>\n Isaiah Maxi<\/em> – Wide Receiver – 266 receiving yards <\/span><\/p>\n Sie Doe Jr.<\/em> – Defensive Line – 81 tackles, 15 sacks, 5 forced fumbles, 2 pass breakups <\/span><\/p>\n Alex Schmidtberger<\/em> – Linebacker – 143 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 3 pass breakups<\/span><\/p>\n Justin McPhail<\/em> – Linebacker – 75 tackles, 3.5 sacks, 1 fumble recovery<\/span><\/p>\n Raheeme Dumas<\/em> – Cornerback – 36 tackles, 6 interceptions <\/span><\/p>\n Deandre James<\/em> – Defensive Back – 56 tackles, 2 interceptions, 339 kick return yards, 1 touchdown return<\/span><\/p>\n Rashad Dunnigan<\/em> – Defensive Back – 47 tackles, 3 interceptions<\/span><\/p>\n Even with many key losses on both sides of the ball, the Tigers still look to be in contention for a postseason berth and a successful 2017 campaign.<\/p>\n For TMN, I’m Tristan Sasse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fort Hays State University will be hosting the annual spring game on Saturday, April 8. If recent years are any indication on what this season… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3398,3387,7349],"tags":[7085,6818,10567,604,1694,106,181,103],"class_list":["post-32007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-news","category-football-sports","category-sports","tag-defendthefort","tag-roartigers","tag-tigerpride","tag-fhsu-athletics","tag-fhsu-football","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-miaa","tag-tiger-media-network"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32007"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32024,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32007\/revisions\/32024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}