CHADRON – The Chadron State College football team will be trying to put the finishing touches on an outstanding regular season and also take the season into the playoffs on Saturday when it hosts Colorado Mines at Elliott Field. Kickoff will be at noon.
The game will be broadcast live on Double Q Country 97.5 FM in Chadron and 105.9 FM in Alliance.
The Eagles began the season with considerable uncertainty. A coaching change had been made and the fact that seven of the 11 games were on the road was another potential stumbling block. However, things have worked out well.
The coaching staff made up of head coach Jay Long and defensive coordinator Jeff Larson, both new in those positions, along with holdovers Chris Stein, the offensive coordinator, and Craig Jersild, the secondary coach and special teams coordinator, has melded well and devised numerous ways to use the team’s outstanding talent.
The Eagles also have proven to be great road warriors. Their only losses through 10 games have been to NCAA Division I-AA Montana State, now 8-1, and Colorado State-Pueblo, which is 10-0 and ranked No. 1 in Division II.
The loss to Pueblo was 45-38 in overtime.
After winning eight of their last nine games, the Eagles finally broke into the American Football Coaches Association’s Top 25 this week at No. 21. More important, they held on to their No. 3 ranking in Super Region 4 which determines playoff pairings.
Pueblo and Ashland College of Ohio, also 10-0, have the top two regional slots, in that order, followed by CSC, Midwestern State of Texas, the University of Indianapolis and West Texas A&M.
The top six teams in each of the four regions advance to the playoffs with the No. 1 and 2 teams receiving first-round byes.
Missouri S&T is the No. 7 team on this week’s regional list.
Chadron State athletic director Brad Smith, who is a member of the regional selection committee, said if the Eagles win and the other five top teams in the region also are victorious Saturday, he anticipates CSC will host West Texas A&M, which is 8-2, on Saturday, Nov. 17.
Colorado Mines will be striving to dash the Eagles’ hopes, and the Orediggers’ pass-happy offense is dangerous.
Mines, which is 6-4 overall and 4-4 in the RMAC after losing to Adams State 36-25 on Saturday, leads the conference in scoring offense at 41.8 points a game and is averaging 473.4 yards a game.
Matt Brown, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound sophomore, is the Orediggers’ trigger man. He has averaged 56 passes a game, connecting on 333 of 567 for 3,741 yards and 31 touchdowns. He has thrown 13 interceptions.
Mines has rushed for just 825 yards while averaging 3.2 yards a carry. However, the Orediggers have scored 17 touchdowns on the ground.
The Orediggers’ top receiver is tight end David Pawelek, who has 81 catches for 1,007 yards and five touchdowns. Two weeks ago during a 45-6 win over Western State, Pawelek caught 16 passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns.
Next on the Mines’ receiving list is Jerrod Doucet, a 6-1, 185-pound senior who has 78 catches for 851 yards and eight TDs.
Through eight games, the team’s top receiver was another senior, Cody Renken, an RMAC preseason all-star selection. He had 65 receptions for 777 yards to lead the RMAC. Renken was injured in the eighth game, a 34-7 win over Colorado Mesa, has not played the last two weeks and is not on the two-deep depth chart that coach Bob Stitt and his staff sent out this week.
Pawelek also was on the conference’s preseason all-star list.
Another Mines’ standout is senior punter Taylor Accardi. He led the nation in punting last season with a 48.5-yard average and is averaging 51.8 yards this year. Twenty-six of his punts have been at least 50 yards and 13 have been downed inside the opponents’ 20.
CSC’s Long notes that the Orediggers would like nothing better than to upset the Eagles.
“A win against us would validate their season,” he pointed out. “They’ll pull out all the stops. It could be quite a shootout. We’d better be ready.”
The last three games in the rivalry, which dates back to 1938, long before the Eagles were playing most of the Colorado schools now on their schedule, have been donnybrooks.
Mines won in overtime 30-27 in 2009, the Eagles won 38-31 two years ago when Glen Clinton returned a kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown with 63 seconds remaining and the Orediggers prevailed 31-24 last year by scoring the only touchdown in the fourth period.