Brennan AngelOne day after the Cal Poly football team’s crushing 51-14 loss at North Dakota State, head coach Rich Ellerson was back in San Luis Obispo already breaking down game film of the Mustangs’ final opponent Sunday.
Cal Poly, which fell from No. 9 to 16 in The Sports Network’s Division I-AA poll Monday, closes the season at 1 p.m. Saturday against Savannah State.
“There’s an awful lot on the table this week,” Ellerson said. “I hope we can get our focus and finish this thing the way we started it.”
The Mustangs started the season winning five of their first six games – including the first two in Great West Football Conference play – and jumping to a No. 3 ranking. But Cal Poly (6-4, 2-2) has lost three of its last four, will not own or share the Great West title for the first time since its inception in 2004 and saw its hopes of reaching the playoffs for the second consecutive year evaporate Saturday.
“Part of it is we have to be more determined,” Ellerson said. “We have to play better. (The Bison) are a couple of touchdowns better than us. They’re not 51-14 better than us.”
If the Mustangs win Saturday, they will put the finishing touches on an overall record of 32-14 over the past four seasons. That mark would be the program’s best since a stretch from 1977-80 in which Cal Poly went 31-13 and won the Division II title in 1980.
“They’ll be excited,” Ellerson said of his senior class, which includes at least two NFL prospects in linebacker Kyle Shotwell and cornerback Courtney Brown. “We have to win this game.”
Ellerson said his team has to renew its focus on fundamentals.
“We’ve got to get guys to be more detailed,” Ellerson said. “We have to play through some of this adversity and compete and we’ll have a chance.”
Tough season for Savannah
Savannah State (2-8), a I-AA independent which was 0-11 in 2005, is coming off a 28-7 home win Saturday over NAIA Edward Waters.
The Tigers opened the season 0-5 and have lost games this season by scores of 55-6 (at Bethune-Cookman), 28-0 (Liberty), 38-13 (Charleston Southern), 38-6 (Winston-Salem State), 27-6 (at Johnson L. Smith) and 66-6 (at Coastal Carolina).
Savannah State has played four Division II schools and one NAIA school this season, losing three times to Division II schools.
Still, the Tigers have some players to account for, such as senior tailback Chad Cone (509 rushing yards on 96 carries), freshman wide receiver Mark Williams (37 receptions, 449 yards, four touchdowns) and sophomore linebacker Trent Newton (105 tackles, two sacks).
“They’ve got some guys who are hard to block,” Ellerson said.
Among 241 I-A and I-AA teams, Savannah State is ranked No. 237 in USA Today’s Jeff Sagarin ratings. Cal Poly is No. 103, ahead of I-A Stanford, Troy, Ball State, Iowa State and others.
Bison, Jacks move up in poll
North Dakota State (9-1, 3-0) moved up from No. 5 to 4 in The Sports Network’s I-AA poll and South Dakota State moved up from No. 22 to 19.
The two schools will meet Saturday in what amounts to the Great West title game.
Neither school, however, is eligible for the postseason because they are still transitioning from the Division II level along with UC Davis (4-5, 1-3).
Ellerson said that North Dakota State is top-to-bottom the best team Cal Poly has played this season, even over I-A San Jose State (6-3), which fell 23-20 Saturday to the No. 14 team in I-A, Boise State.
“The best way to control that offense is to keep it on the sidelines,” Ellerson said of the Bison, who are sixth among 121 I-AA teams with 400.6 yards of total offense per game.
One more college game for Shotwell
Shotwell had 17 total tackles – including 10 solo – Saturday.
With 113 stops on the season, the middle linebacker and Buck Buchanan Award candidate ranks 10th in I-AA in total tackles per game (11.3).
Ellerson, though, said Shotwell should not have had to make that many stops Saturday.
“He’s a guy who loves to play and kept playing hard,” Ellerson said. “We weren’t getting any production out of the defensive front. Everything was happening at the linebacker level.”