{"id":383245,"date":"2026-08-28T04:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T04:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/383245\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T04:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T04:50:15","slug":"west-florida-secures-first-di-win-topping-southern-illinois-34-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/383245\/","title":{"rendered":"West Florida secures first DI win topping Southern Illinois 34-31"},"content":{"rendered":"

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Ty’ray Davis threw for two touchdowns and ran for another and West Florida<\/a> won its first Division I FCS contest upsetting Southern Illinois<\/a> 34-31 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

West Florida only started playing football a decade ago, and at the Division II level won the national championship in 2019.<\/p>\n

In the season opener for both teams, the Argonauts built a 27-9 and held on against the Salukis, ranked No. 16 in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25.<\/p>\n

The Salukis scored their first touchdown when Jake Curry<\/a> connected with Kyle Thomas<\/a> from 18 yards out. The two-point conversion reduced the deficit to 27-17 with 2:19 left in the third.<\/p>\n

Later, after an Argonauts turnover, Curry ran it in from 19 to reduce the deficit to 27-24 with 7:39 remaining.<\/p>\n

After forcing West Florida to a three-and-out, the Argonauts defense took a stand and stripped Edward Robinson<\/a> on the first play and recovered the fumble.<\/p>\n

Both teams exchanged late touchdowns for the final margin before David Law-Mortimer<\/a> intercepted Curry with 58 seconds left to end it.<\/p>\n

Davis sprinted 45 yards to the end zone with 1:14 left in the first quarter for a 7-3 lead and West Florida never trailed.<\/p>\n

With 9:48 remaining in the second, Davis threw a 19-yard touchdown to Jakari Mozelle<\/a> to make it 13-6. Five minutes later, West Florida’s A’Khoury Lyde<\/a> intercepted Curry and ran it back 44 yards for a 20-6 lead.<\/p>\n

In the third, Markel Townsend<\/a> ran it in from the 9 ending an eight-play, 77-yard drive that made it 27-9 with 7:27 left.<\/p>\n

Southern Illinois Stephen Green<\/a> kicked field goals of 31, 47 and 50 yards but missed from 41.<\/p>\n

\u2014-<\/p>\n

Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Ty’ray Davis threw for two touchdowns and ran for another and West Florida won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153673,143,153671,153670,71378,28,30,29,153672,153669,153676,153674,35753,153675,153668],"class_list":["post-383245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-akhoury-lyde","tag-college-football","tag-david-law-mortimer","tag-edward-robinson","tag-event_recap","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jakari-mozelle","tag-jake-curry","tag-kyle-thomas","tag-markel-townsend","tag-southern-illinois-salukis","tag-stephen-green","tag-west-florida-argonauts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}