Bethune-Cookman beat Mississippi Valley State 35-14 on Saturday evening at Rice-Totten Stadium, and Jaden Davis owned the night. He intercepted three passes, scored on a 61-yard fumble recovery touchdown in the final minute and helped turn a game that started with early mistakes into a 21-point win.
The result mattered because Bethune-Cookman moved to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play, with first place on the line. In a game that featured six turnovers, the Wildcats still found a way to control the middle stretch after giving the ball away twice in the opening quarter.
Mississippi Valley State struck first on a 47-yard touchdown run after the opening takeaway, but Bethune-Cookman answered midway through the second quarter when Tyler Jefferson hit Rickie Shaw II for a 23-yard touchdown to tie it. Jefferson then gave Bethune-Cookman the lead with a two-yard rushing touchdown, and Davis had two interceptions before halftime as Bethune-Cookman took a 14-7 lead into the break.
That was the first sign the game had turned on defense, and Davis kept building on it. He finished with nine tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss, tying for third in program history for interceptions in a single game. The third pick matched a mark only a small handful of players in a game can reach, and it came in a contest where Bethune-Cookman could not afford another swing back the other way.
The pressure never really eased on Mississippi Valley State after that. Tyler Jefferson added another rushing touchdown late in the third quarter, then found Rickie Shaw II again for his second touchdown pass in the fourth quarter. Davis closed it out in the final minute with the long fumble return, a fitting finish for a defense that kept recovering every time the game threatened to tighten.
The odd part was how messy the start looked. Bethune-Cookman turned it over twice in the opening quarter and still walked away with a comfortable win, which says as much about the defense as the final score does. For Bethune-Cookman, the next question is how a performance this complete carries into the stretch that follows a game with first place at stake.
