Shepard and the Red Flash’s young linebacking corps were bright spots in Saturday’s loss to Big South preseason favorite Liberty. The freshman tallied a game-high 14 tackles, eight of which were solo. Shepard helped maintain SFPA’s national ranking in tackles for a loss, dropping Liberty players behind the line of scrimmage twice. The Red Flash rank 18th in Division I FCS in TFL with 8.0 per game. The freshman linebacker is second in the conference, averaging 9.0 tackles per contest.