HUNTSVILLE, Texas _ The showdown for the Southland Conference title turned on early University of Central Arkansas turnovers and the high-powered passing game of Sam Houston State on Saturday afternoon at Bowers Stadium.

    The top-ranked Sam Houston State Bearkats forced the 11th-ranked Bears into four first-half turnovers and scored off three of them in cruising to a 38-10 halftime advantage. Another costly turnover in the second half eventually allowed the Bearkats to grab a 59-23 victory and an outright conference championship. Both teams will be in the FCS Playoff field that will be announced at 10 a.m. Sunday on ESPNU, SHSU as the league's automatic qualifier and UCA as an at-large selection.

    "They were just a much better football team than us today,' said a disappointed UCA head coach Steve Campbell. "The turnovers didn't help at all, but they outplayed us in every phase. Hats off to them, congratulations. They've got a great football team. When you play a great football team, you can't have the mistakes that we had today and have a chance to win.'

    UCA, which had an eight-game winning streak broken, had fumbles on three of its first four possessions of the game, by three different players, then added an interception midway through the second quarter. The Bearkats (11-0, 9-0) took full advantage, grabbing the big halftime lead behind the passing of junior quarterback Jeremiah Briscoe. SHSU finished the first quarter with 183 yards to UCA's 48, and ran 33 plays to just 10 for the Bears. Briscoe threw five first-half touchdowns _ seven for the game _ to become the SLC single-season leader with 52 scoring passes.

    Briscoe finished the half 20 of 34 for 322 yards and five touchdowns. UCA's rushing defense, ranked No. 1 in the nation, held the Bearkats to 15 yards on 14 carries in the opening 30 minutes. For the game, SHSU had only 69 yards on the ground on 35 rushes. UCA also held SHSU under its season average for total offense, allowing an even 500 yards to a team putting up 592 per game.

    However, the turnovers were too much to overcome. The Bears' previous season high for turnovers this season was six against Stephen F. Austin, but UCA won that game 34-14 on the road. On Saturday against the No. 1 team in the nation, that did not happen, and Briscoe made sure of it. The junior transfer from UAB ended up 26 of 41 for 431 yards and seven touchdowns. Junior receiver Yedidiah Louis caught nine passes for 168 yards and four of the scores.

    On a day when very little went right for the Bears, a career milestone for wide receiver Desmond Smith was the pbvious highlight. The senior from Bentonville, Ark., surpassed Michael Norvell (2001, 03-05) as UCA's career leader in receptions. Smith caught 9 passes for 73 yards and now has 217 career receptions, passing Norvell's 213. Smith also drew closer to Aaron Fairooz (2003-06) for the school mark for career receiving yards record (2,797 yards). Smith now has 2,743.

    Smith had one of UCA's two touchdown receptions from junior quarterback Hayden Hildebrand. Smith's was a highlight-reel 14-yarder early in the second quarter that briefly cut Sam Houston's lead to 17-7. Hildebrand also connected with junior tight end Chandler Dexter in the final seconds of the game for Chandler's first touchdown at UCA. Junior running back Jarvis Cooper added a 1-yard touchdown run and sophomore Matt Cummins had a 33-yard field goal for the Bears' other points.

    "They are as good as advertised. That's a very good football team,' said Campbell. "We could have probably done some things differently, but I did not want to not do what got us here. They were good enough to take advantage of some things. They made the plays and we didn't. They got after us. They were the better football team today.

    "We have to get back to work and go find a way to win a football game next week. We'll learn from this and hopefully we can use this to try to win another game next week.' 

    The nine regular-season victories is the most for the Bears since 2012, when UCA made its last playoff appearance. The top eight seeds receive a first-round bye for next Saturday's first round of action. UCA (9-2, 8-1) was seventh in the playoff committee rankings going into Saturday's game.