LAKELAND, Fla.—A dominant second half helped Southeastern cruise to a 66-14 win at Victory Field on Homecoming night.
Up 31-14 at halftime, the Fire (6-1) rattled off 35 unanswered points in the second half.
"We believe we have a standard of excellence here and we are going to uphold that and do everything we can to get back on track," said Barefield.
On its second possession of the third quarter, the Fire got a 51-yard touchdown reception by
Eugene Witherspoon from
Cooper Jones to take a 38-14 lead. It was Witherspoon's second touchdown of the game, as Jones connected with him on a 55-yard touchdown pass for SEU's first score of the game.
Witherspoon finished with four catches for 119 yards.
Jones found 10 different receivers with his 21 completions on 29 attempts for 336 yards with four touchdowns and one interception. It was his fourth 300-yard game of the season.
The defense got involved in the scoring , getting a 49-yard interception return for a touchdown by
Cory Rahman with 9:08 left in the third, and a 31-yard interception return for a touchdown by
Nnamdi Umeakuana with 1:04 left in the third.
"I was proud of our defense, when we gave up a touchdown on a broken coverage, our guys took it as a challenge to make up for that and we challenged them in the second half," said Barefield. "If you challenge those guys, they'll respond."
In between the two defensive scores,
Antwain Adams had a four-yard touchdown reception during a 28-point third quarter.
The Fire finished with 545 yards of total offense on 58 plays, averaging just shy of 10 yards per snap.
Senior linebacker
Nico Moreno was at the top of the tackle chart with nine.
Justin Visconti added two sacks.
The Fire will host Webber International next week at 7 p.m.
