Frontier Notebook: Raiders like to run the ball more
Frontier Conference Notebook
By George Ferguson
September 24, 2015
Times are tough right now for the young Montana
State University-Northern football team —
especially offensively. And, things don’t get any
easier for the Lights.
Northern makes its only out-of-state trip of the
season this week when the Lights pay a visit to the
defending NAIA national champion Southern
Oregon Raiders Saturday.
While the game is Saturday, the trip takes up
nearly a full week. Northern left Havre for Ashland,
Oregon, Wednesday. The trip is 1,037 miles one
way, and by bus, takes a full 20 hours, not
including stops. Since SOU joined the league, the
Lights have made one other trip to Ashland, back in
2013.
Roger Miller
UM-Western's Hunter Thomson, middle, tries to go through
Montana State University-Northern defensive backs Malcolm
Manuel, left, and Garet Jericoff during last Saturday's game
at Blue Pony Stadium. The Bulldogs are alone in first place
in the Frontier Conference standings, while the Lights
search for their first win Saturday at Southern Oregon.
And while the trip is difficult enough, as the Lights
won’t reach Havre again until early Monday
morning, the game will be a difficult one as well.
MSU-N hasn’t beaten the Raiders since they joined
the Frontier Conference, and offensively, the game
is two teams that are polar opposites statistically.
Even with an early-season loss to Carroll College, and having to replace four-year NAIA All-American Austin
Dodge at quarterback, the SOU offense is humming right along. No, the Raiders aren’t putting up the kinds
of numbers they did when Dodge was there, but they are still a potent offensive attack.
The Raiders are averaging 36 points and 470 yards of offense per game. And while they’ve always been a
good rushing team, they are a really good rushing team this season. With a new quarterback in Tanner
Trosin, SOU has turned to veteran running back Melvin Mason even more, and the result is SOU chewing up
260 yards per game on the ground.
Trosin didn’t begin the season as SOU’s starter and has struggled at times, as he’s averaging just 219 yards
passing per outing. But, he still has one of the best wide receivers to throw to in Matt Retzlaff, as well as a
host of others, and it seems it’s just a matter of time until the Raiders’ passing game breaks out.
Meanwhile, Northern really needs to break out offensively. The Lights haven’t scored an offensive point in
their last two games, and they are averaging just 203 total yards of offense and nine first downs per
outing. Northern has really struggled on third down this season, converting just 22 percent of the time, and
if they are going to have any chance of keeping up with SOU Saturday, they’ll need to turn those offensive
woes around in a hurry.
Alone at the Top
The UM-Western Bulldogs are for real. And now, they have the lead alone in the Frontier Conference
standings. At 3-0, the Bulldogs are now ranked No. 16 and they’re about to play their biggest game in
recent school history.
On Saturday, Western will welcome in No. 6 Carroll College to Vigilante Field. While Western has always
seemed to play the Fighting Saints tough in the past, Saturday’s game in Dillon is a golden opportunity for
Western to earn a statement victory.
But making statements isn’t the primary concern for head coach B.J. Robertson and the Bulldogs. No,
they’re chasing a Frontier title and a coveted playoff berth. A win over Carroll would certainly give the
Bulldogs a leg up in that chase. And not only that, but then the Bulldogs get Southern Oregon at home the
following week, and considering Western only plays both SOU and Carroll once this season, if the Bulldogs
can win both of their next two home games, they will be extremely hard to catch in the conference title
race.
Parity and Power
Sometimes parity isn’t a good thing in a conference. On some occasions, it means the league isn’t very
good. But that doesn’t appear to be the case with the Frontier.
The league has four teams ranked in the new NAIA Coaches Poll, including Carroll and SOU, both of which
are inside the Top 10. With Western at No. 16 and Montana Tech at No. 21, the league is tied with the
Great Plains Athletic Conference for the most teams inside the NAIA Top 25 this week.
Add to that Rocky Mountain College and Eastern Oregon have received votes in the poll, and it’s obvious
what the rest of the country thinks of the Frontier.
So while the Frontier is indeed powerful on the national level, there’s also a lot of parity, and it’s been
proven that anybody can beat anybody. Just last week, Carroll needed a last-second hail mary pass to beat
Rocky Mountain College at home – the same RMC team that got beat 49-6 two weeks earlier by Western.
And Montana Tech had jumped all the way to No. 15 in the NAIA and was unbeaten, but the Orediggers
went to 0-3 Eastern Oregon and lost. That’s the same EOU squad that was shelled by College of Idaho on
the opening week of the season, and the Yotes haven’t won since.
So, while Western seems to be the team to beat right now, the parity in the league has proven that a lot of
things are still up in the air and a lot is going to happen in the next two months.
Early Leaders
This week marks the end of the first full month in the Frontier Conference. Here’s a look at the top
performers in the conference so far.
Tech running back Nolan Saraceni is leading the league in rushing with 133 yards per game, while
Northern’s Zach McKinley is second. After a monster performance against Carroll last week, RMC’s Chase
White leads the conference in passing at 269 yards per game, while teammate Andre McCullouch leads the
league in receiving with 7.3 catches per game and 94 yards per outing.
On the defensive side of the ball, EOU linebacker Gary Posten is averaging 13 tackles per game and 52 total
stops to lead the league. MSU-N linebacker Jesse Morales is second with 11.3 tackles per outing. Northern’s
Tyler Craig and Western’s Reno Ward each have four sacks to lead the league, while Craig leads the way
with seven tackles for loss. College of Idaho’s Nate Moore is tops in the Frontier with four interceptions.
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