MOSS BLUFF — Juniors Gavin Stout and Cooper Smith made big plays on both sides of the ball Friday to help Sam Houston stay undefeated and hold off rival Sulphur 35-27.

Smith had a hat trick with a trio of interceptions and had a fourth wiped out by a penalty.

Stout threw four touchdown passes and completed 16 of 24 yards for 290 yards as the Broncos improved to 5-0 for the first time since 2018. Cole Flanagan caught three passes for 102 yards and a touchdown.

Sam Houston is the lone undefeated team remaining in Southwest Louisiana. Head coach Chad Davis declined to speak to media after the game.

Smith picked off a pass in the end zone with 7:30 left in the first quarter and grabbed another with 9:32 left in the second. Both led to touchdowns, a 2-yard run by Drew Bailey and a 9-yard pass from Gavin Stout to Ty Stout. His third pick came with 5:23 left in the game. Sam Houston’s two other interceptions were negated by penalties as they committed 12 for 132 yards.

Sam Houston (5-0, 4-0) didn’t waste time scoring in the first half. None of its four first-half scoring drives lasted more than 2 minutes, 20 seconds.

The Broncos needed 1:49 to score their first touchdown. Gavin Stout made a perfect over-the-shoulder pass to Ayden Rose in double coverage for a 60-yard score.

Their next scoring drive was 2:20 and the third barely 27 seconds as the lead grew to 21-0.

“We have to stop starting so slow,” Sulphur head coach Cody Gueringer said. “We talk about it every single week, but evidently we just have to do something different. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Starting slow is killing us. In the second half, they played great.”

Stout added a pair of touchdown passes in the second half on a 10-yard shovel pass to Drew Dronet in the third quarter and an 8-yarder to Cole Flanagan in the fourth that gave the Broncos a 35-13 lead. But Sulphur’s (2-3, 1-3) offense came alive late and scored 20 points in the fourth quarter.

“Offensively, we are calling the game as aggressive as possible to go after things, and sometimes it just doesn’t go our way,” Gueringer said. “We have to get yards on the goal line.

“The first half, we don’t get a few yards to punch it in, and the 2-point conversion we don’t punch it in. That is a yard, a yard and a half. In the game of football, you got to want that and go get that.”

Sulphur had an 84-yard drive that started in the third quarter and ended in the fourth on a 47-yard reception by Brodie Depriest with 10:27 left in the game.

Sulphur’s Austin Babaz scored twice in the final 2:16 of game. His first was an 8-yard reception followed by an 11-yarder with 1:06 left to cut the Broncos’ lead to 35-27 after J.D. Lafleur grabbed a 2-point conversion pass over a defender. A big hook-and-ladder play set up Depriest’s second score. From their 21, Addison Constance hit Depriest, who then lateraled the ball to Tyler Joubert, who was knocked out of bounds at the Bronco 11-yard line.

The Tors tried the onside kick and came close, but Lafleur recovered the ball a yard shy of the 10-yard minimum and Sam Houston ran out the clock.

Just a few yards made a big difference for the Tors twice earlier in the game. The Tors mounted an 86-yard, 12-play drive midway through the second quarter but Ian Malone was stopped inside the Broncos’ 1-yard line by J’sonte Duhon, and Sam Houston stopped a pair of 2-point conversions in the fourth quarter.

“We executed those situationals that we go over every single week,” Gueringer said. “That was good, but the problem is the other aspect of it all: executing the little things in the first half, getting those yards on the goal line.

“They came up with a good goal-line stand twice. They picked us off a few times and made our quarterback rattled. We were able to establish the run game a little more which is good, but we also have to be able to throw the football consistently.”

Constance completed 25 of 37 passes for 317 yards and three touchdowns. Babaz finished with seven catches for 58 yards.