Hype begins for The Game in NAIA football
Posted: Monday, November 10, 2008
Let's just talk some foot-ball today.
It's the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and snooty Division I followers, of course, look down their collective nose and pooh-pooh the competitiion level.
But, this little I-29 squabble coming up Saturday on the outskirts of Sioux Falls will, arguably, be as good as it gets when student-athletes get together in college football.
Time for The Game in NAIA football this season, unbeaten and No. 2 Unversity of Sioux Falls and unbeaten and No. 4 Morningside. There hasn't been -- and there won't be one -- bigger in the regular seasdon than the Great Plains Athletic Conference conflagration.
No matter the outcome, both will advance to the post-season playoffs, but this is one of those grudge matches. Katy bar the door. One will come out of this with its nose bloodied, but with a probable chance to climb off the canvas somwhere down the line in a rematch.
And, the officials need to be forewarned to have their yellow hankies at the ready. Sportsmanlike conduct will be welcomed, but a Northwestern-USF contest in Sioux Falls just over week ago turned deportment into a hazy shade of the oncoming winter.
If you consider some of the following numbers, anticipation may get the Morningsiders a little down.
Sioux Falls has scored 352 points; made 218 first downs; rushed for 2,078 yards; passed for 1,875 yards; run 707 plays, averaged 5.6 yards a play and rushed for 4.6 yards a tote. The numbers for the loyal (or lowly) opposition in the same departments in order are 26, 55, 66, 712, 446, 1.7 and 0.3.
USF has also won 32 straight home games and 72 of its last 73 conference games (Morningside won 2005).
The two will clear leather at high noon at USF's Bob Young Field at the school's non-campus Sanford Health Sports Complex in the southeast corner of South Dakota's largest city.
There are those claiming Iowa's 24-23 last-second conquest of unbeaten and third-ranked Penn State Saturday was the biggest win, not to mention upset, in school history.
It certainly was among the biggest wins ever, no question about that.
However, the biggest and most significant victory by the Hawkeyes was an 8-0 upset of 14th-ranked Ohio State on Oct. 25, 1952.
That Hawkeye team, beginning a new era under the tutelage of first-year coach Forest Evashevski, came into that homecoming tussle in Iowa City 0-4.
It wasn't long after that Evy's Hawks went 9-1 in 1956, beating Oregon State in the '57 Rose Bowl, then headed back back to Pasadena to beat Cal in the '59 Rose Bowt to finish 8-1-1.
While on the subject of numbers, Ohio Dominican quarterback Chris Reisert is the new NAIA all-time leader in touchdown passes (117) and career passing yardage (13,174) after throwing for 381 yards and four TDs in a 56-0 rout of Urbana Saturday.
Kirk Baumgartner of Wisconsin-Stevens Point held the old yardage record of 13,036 and Marc Weekly of Pacific Lutheran had the old TD mark of 113.
Did you get the eerie feeling Saturday you were watching the current Penn State football coach in the press box in Iowa City and the next Nittany Lion coach patrolling the Iowa sideline?
It's the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and snooty Division I followers, of course, look down their collective nose and pooh-pooh the competitiion level.
But, this little I-29 squabble coming up Saturday on the outskirts of Sioux Falls will, arguably, be as good as it gets when student-athletes get together in college football.
Time for The Game in NAIA football this season, unbeaten and No. 2 Unversity of Sioux Falls and unbeaten and No. 4 Morningside. There hasn't been -- and there won't be one -- bigger in the regular seasdon than the Great Plains Athletic Conference conflagration.
No matter the outcome, both will advance to the post-season playoffs, but this is one of those grudge matches. Katy bar the door. One will come out of this with its nose bloodied, but with a probable chance to climb off the canvas somwhere down the line in a rematch.
And, the officials need to be forewarned to have their yellow hankies at the ready. Sportsmanlike conduct will be welcomed, but a Northwestern-USF contest in Sioux Falls just over week ago turned deportment into a hazy shade of the oncoming winter.
If you consider some of the following numbers, anticipation may get the Morningsiders a little down.
Sioux Falls has scored 352 points; made 218 first downs; rushed for 2,078 yards; passed for 1,875 yards; run 707 plays, averaged 5.6 yards a play and rushed for 4.6 yards a tote. The numbers for the loyal (or lowly) opposition in the same departments in order are 26, 55, 66, 712, 446, 1.7 and 0.3.
USF has also won 32 straight home games and 72 of its last 73 conference games (Morningside won 2005).
The two will clear leather at high noon at USF's Bob Young Field at the school's non-campus Sanford Health Sports Complex in the southeast corner of South Dakota's largest city.
There are those claiming Iowa's 24-23 last-second conquest of unbeaten and third-ranked Penn State Saturday was the biggest win, not to mention upset, in school history.
It certainly was among the biggest wins ever, no question about that.
However, the biggest and most significant victory by the Hawkeyes was an 8-0 upset of 14th-ranked Ohio State on Oct. 25, 1952.
That Hawkeye team, beginning a new era under the tutelage of first-year coach Forest Evashevski, came into that homecoming tussle in Iowa City 0-4.
It wasn't long after that Evy's Hawks went 9-1 in 1956, beating Oregon State in the '57 Rose Bowl, then headed back back to Pasadena to beat Cal in the '59 Rose Bowt to finish 8-1-1.
While on the subject of numbers, Ohio Dominican quarterback Chris Reisert is the new NAIA all-time leader in touchdown passes (117) and career passing yardage (13,174) after throwing for 381 yards and four TDs in a 56-0 rout of Urbana Saturday.
Kirk Baumgartner of Wisconsin-Stevens Point held the old yardage record of 13,036 and Marc Weekly of Pacific Lutheran had the old TD mark of 113.
Did you get the eerie feeling Saturday you were watching the current Penn State football coach in the press box in Iowa City and the next Nittany Lion coach patrolling the Iowa sideline?
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