Lauren RabainoOutsiders looking in may allow themselves to be more concerned about the Cal Poly football team’s homecoming showdown next week than Saturday’s contest at winless Southern Utah, but the Mustangs themselves wouldn’t dare.
“We haven’t played well enough to look down on anybody,” Cal Poly head coach Rich Ellerson said. “Our team’s personality and character help us tune out other voices. We expect it to be hard.”
Ellerson and his players stressed that while the Thunderbirds (0-8, 0-2 Great West) will still be in search of their first victory when the two teams take the field at noon Saturday in Cedar City, Utah, it will largely be because of the stiff competition they’ve faced.
“They’re a really good 0-8,” Cal Poly quarterback Jonathan Dally said. “We have to play all four quarters.”
One of Dally’s favorite targets, wide receiver Tredale Tolver, shared Dally’s sentiment that the Thunderbirds’ record is deceiving and shouldn’t be taken lightly not only because the Mustangs (5-3, 1-1 Great West) needed two fourth-quarter touchdowns to beat them 18-14 Sept. 30 last year, but because they have mounted one of the country’s most difficult schedules this year.
“They’re 0-8, but they’re not really an 0-8 team,” Tolver said, adding that Ellerson “does a great job of keeping (the team) zeroed in” and remembering that the “most important game is the next game.”
Indeed, Southern Utah has lost to four of the top six Football Championship Subdivision teams in the country as well as on the road to No. 23 Youngstown State 23-22, and also 7-3 at Montana State, which received the most votes of any unranked team in the latest FCS Coaches Poll.
The most recent of the Thunderbirds’ losses, a 52-17 drubbing, came Oct. 27 at the hands of No. 1 North Dakota State, which is nearly two weeks removed from a 27-21 victory over Big Ten neighbor Minnesota, and will visit the Mustangs at 4:05 p.m. Nov. 10 in a much-anticipated rematch of last year’s 51-14 Bison rout.
The Mustangs will focus on correcting flaws that have plagued them lately, such as covering kick-and- punt returns better, more consistently being aware in the secondary and finding more of a balance between passing and running offensively.
“We fired a few people,” Ellerson said, referring to rearranging his special teams coverage personnel after surrendering a 78-yard punt return for a score last week. But he added that regardless of who the duties fall to, the players will need to adhere to practiced routines to shore up units that rank 102nd in the country in punt-return coverage and make up one of just seven FCS teams to have allowed two kickoff returns for touchdowns.
Defensively, the Mustangs have been perplexing as well, uncharacteristically ranking No. 75 in the country in total defense.
“We got casual with our eyes (last week),” Ellerson said, alluding to the 149 yards and two touchdowns receiving allowed to Idaho State’s Jaron Taylor, adding that the younger members of a defense featuring four starting underclassmen should have less momentary lapses this far into the season.
Although Cal Poly’s offense, which is No. 1 in the FCS at more than 518 yards per game, boasts the subdivision’s leading passer in efficiency (Dally) and receiver (Ramses Barden), both of whom shared the College Sporting News’ National Player of the Week honors after the team’s 48-28 vanquishing of the Bengals this past Saturday, Ellerson would like to see his team better execute a more even ratio of plays through the air and on the ground.
“We’re not the kind of outfit to throw 40 times (in a game),” Ellerson said, adding that the team’s running attack has taken a “step back” of late. “We have to make sure the ability to run the triple option is a real threat.”
The technician at the controls of the season’s new scheme agrees.
“We’re taking what the defense gives us and it has benefitted us on the ground and through the air,” Dally said, though adding that even he has been slightly surprised that the Mustangs haven’t run more.
While Ellerson, who himself served as head coach at Southern Utah in 1996 before resigning, readily sees room for improvement, current Thunderbirds head coach Wes Meier finds it more difficult to find fault in the Mustangs.
“I don’t see weaknesses on either side of the ball,” Meier said. “We’re going to try to use the home field to our advantage. We’ve played better on the road than at home – it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Meier, who largely blamed last year’s four-point loss at Cal Poly on his team’s two turnovers in the fourth quarter of what “would’ve been a big win,” said his team needs to transfer its attitude from the beginning of last year’s game to now, and that they should be in a “frame of mind where they’ve got something to prove.
“If we hold on to the ball, we have a great chance of winning the game,” he said.
Exactly who will be under center for the Thunderbirds remains “up in the air,” Meier said Tuesday, after starting signal caller Wes Marshall had to leave the game with an injury in the first half of his team’s loss to North Dakota State.
Backup Cody Stone came into the game and went 11-of-20 passing for 182 yards and two scores, but was picked off four times; redshirt freshman Stetson Peck saw action as well, going five-of-nine for 28 yards through the air.
Despite Marshall being more of a dual threat, averaging 43 yards rushing per game compared to Stone’s negative average, both Meier and Ellerson say their game plans will remain much the same regardless of whether Marshall is able to play.
“Cody isn’t quite the runner Wes is, but he’s probably a better thrower,” Meier said. “We won’t really change the scheme.”
Whoever Southern Utah’s passer is, he will likely be looking early and often for 6-foot-3 wide receiver Jeremy Edwards, who has hauled in five of his team’s eight aerial touchdowns on the year and is sixth in the FCS in yards per catch, at 20.5.
Johnny Sanchez, meanwhile, leads the Thunderbirds in rushing with 464 yards and four TDs on 108 carries. Slot back and return specialist Nick Miller heads the team with 33 catches and 1,211 all-purpose yards.
Adjusting early to whatever the Thunderbirds call against them will be crucial, Ellerson says, to avoid getting off to a sputtering start as they did last year against a team that has presently been outscored 69-7 in the first quarter en route to losing by more than 20 points per outing.
Sophomore middle linebacker Rob Takeno has made a team-high 61 tackles for the Thunderbirds’ defense, which has produced just 13 sacks and four interceptions.
Southern Utah’s No. 93 defense will try to contain a Mustang passing attack that a week ago boasted Dally completing 16-of-24 passes for 453 yards and five scores, three to Barden and two to Tolver.
Barden’s 10 catches for 268 yards, both career highs, were his latest stamp on a campaign garnering lofty praise – and perhaps – even envy in rival coaches’ circles.
“I wish we had Ramses,” Meier joked when discussing the teams’ passing attacks.
Not to be outdone, Tolver, whose scores covered 38 and 62 yards at Idaho State, opined that Cal Poly’s offense, too, can stand to improve as it comes down the home stretch of a season in which the team is still trying to prove itself worthy of a playoff berth.
“We have so many weapons, it’s keeping us versatile,” Tolver said. “Offensively, though, we have to pay better attention to detail. There’s a full season of work left in these three weeks.”