UT Permian Basin Football took advantage of a number of turnovers in the second half, rallying from trailing 21-7 to outscore Eastern New Mexico 41-17 after halftime in a 48-38 victory over the Greyhounds.

Senior linebacker Chris Hoad eclipsed 500 career tackles in the victory and is the current NCAA active tackle leader across all NCAA Divisions.

The victory also give the team the most wins in program history at three, with a pair of games remaining on the year.

Eastern New Mexico opened the contest with an 8-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, scoring on a 35-yard touchdown pass on fourth down.  The Falcon offense answered right back.  Starting the drive with a trick play, Kobe Robinson found Caleb Forrest on a 17-yard pass.  The Falcons used a balanced attack to move down the field and punched it in on a 10-yard quarterback keeper to tie the game on a third down.

Both defenses settled in, not allowing the other to score on their next drive to end the quarter.  The Falcons caught a break on the first play of the second half when their punt bounced off a Greyhound blocker and recovered it on the Greyhound side of the field.  They couldn't capitalize though, turning it over on downs on the ensuing drive.  The Greyhounds took advantage of the good field position, driving down the field and scored on Paul Terry's 8-yard run to retake the lead at 14-7.

After a Falcon turnover, the Greyhounds capitalized once again, driving down the field and scoring again on a 9-yard run to push their lead to 21-7.  Jeremiah Cooley drug a pair of defenders for 10 yards on the ensuing Falcon drive for a 32-yard reception, putting the Falcons in scoring position.  They couldn't capitalize missing a field goal just before the half.

Ben Galaviz opened the second half with a long kick return to the 35 and a personal foul added 15 yards, putting the Falcons at midfield.  Davion Sutton barreled forward on a third-and-5 for a first down.  On the next play Cooley jumped over a defender for a 24-yard catch.  The Falcons capped off the drive with a 16-yard strike to Kyle McBride, fighting through a defender to cut the deficit to 21-14. 

After a long Greyhound kick return, they fumbled the first play from scrimmage which was recovered by Diego Assad.  The very next play Roberts found McBride for a 47-yard catch and run to tie the score within 26 seconds.  On the kick off, the Greyhounds fumbled again turning it back over to the Falcons, but the Falcons couldn't capitalize turning it over on downs.  Cooley had another long catch-and-run dragging a defender again on a 36-yard gain.  The Falcons converted on a third-and-6 on a pass to Kobe Robinson to keep the drive alive.  Marquis Simmons capped off the drive with a 31-yard touchdown run to grab the 28-21 lead with 21 unanswered points.

The Greyhounds answered, cutting into the Falcon lead with a 43-yard field goal to make it 28-24.  It was all Falcons from there.  Sutton had a drive where he did all the work, running for all 70 yards of offense and capping it off with a 5-yard run.  The Falcons scored on their next possession.  Marquis Simmons did the heavy lifting with a 17 and 28-yard run getting the Falcons into the red zone.  They capped it off with a brilliant one-handed grab by Cooley from Kameron Mathis from 10 yards out to go up 41-24. 

The Greyhounds wouldn't go quietly, moving the all quickly down the field in 2:15 to make it 41-31.  They recovered the onside kick, pushing into Falcon territory before Donta Stuart's interception went back 65 yards for the pick-six.  The scoring didn't stop there as the Greyhounds answered on their first play on the next drive for a 73-yard touchdown to make it 48-38.

UTPB ended the game when Martin Brown IV intercepted a pass on the Eastern New Mexico one-yard line with under a minute left for the victory.

Jeremiah Cooley ended the game with 100 receiving yards, including his one-handed touchdown grab to lead the team in receiving. Kyle McBride added 63 yards on a pair of catches.

The Falcons did a lot of damage on the ground as Sutton rushed for 118 yards on 17 attempts. Simmons added nine carries for 78 yards as the Falcons averaged 5.6 yards per carry.

Hoad was a monster for the defense has he has been all season, racking up 16 tackles with 1.5 tackles for loss. John O'Kelley made noise in the backfield from the defensive line with eight tackles and 1.5 sacks on the evening.

Clayton Roberts threw for 182 yards with a pair of touchdowns and an interception on 11-20 passes on the night.

The Falcons held the Greyhounds to 290 yards on the ground well below their season average.