Now that the Wayland Baptist Pioneer football team is sporting a winning record for the first time in its reinstituted three-year history, the immediate goal is to maintain it. With a solid NCAA Division II Colorado State Western team coming to town for Saturday night's home-opener, that won't be easy.
"We're going to have our hands full," WBU coach
Butch Henderson said. "We'll have to play very well to win."
Kickoff between the Pioneers, who opened their season with a 28-21 victory over NAIA first-year Arizona Christian in Phoenix a week ago, and the Mountaineers of Gunnison, Colo., who will be making their 2014 debut, is 6 p.m. Saturday at Greg Sherwood Memorial Bulldog Stadium. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students, available at the gate.
Free video and audio live streaming will be available through
www.wbuathletics.com. Locally, the game can be heard on KKYN (106.9-FM) with Tom Hall and Danny Andrews.
A tailgate party featuring free food and drink, while it lasts and provided by Vista Bank, giveaways and music will take place in the southwest corner of the home parking lot, beginning at 4:30.
A new tradition this year will see Pioneer players briefly greeting fans at the tailgate party beginning about an hour before kickoff. Fans are encouraged to gather at the tailgate site to wish players good luck prior to warm-ups.
Henderson hopes the momentum gained from last week's victory over Arizona Christian will help the Pioneers as they look to pick up a second win in their 2014 home debut.
"We need to keep it moving that way," the coach said. "That (win) gives us a lot of momentum, especially winning it like we did in a game that was nip-and-tuck, where we had to drive and score and then needed the defense to rise up and stop them.
"The young men are more confident of what they're doing and now realize that the hard work they're putting in is giving them a chance to be successful."
Henderson said Saturday's game should be a compelling matchup between a Wayland team that favors a rapid-fire offensive approach and a Western State Colorado team that he said prefers a more controlled environment.
"Their offense likes to be able to manage the game by keeping the ball away from opponents' offenses, and then play really good defense," Henderson said. "Even though they're in the spread, they like to keep the clock running. They try to keep their offense on the field and their defense off the field. They're all about making first downs and moving the ball.
"It should be an interesting matchup."
Henderson said the Mountaineers' offense revolves around three players, starting with quarterback Brett Arrivey. The 6-foot-2 redshirt sophomore started all 11 games last season when the Mountaineers went 2-9, a record that included a season-opening 48-21 loss to West Texas A&M and a narrow 16-14 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference defeat to the same Adams State team that topped Wayland in the first outing of the 2013 season, 44-0.
Arrivey passed for just over 2,000 yards and 14 touchdowns a year ago while completing almost 60 percent of his passes. One of Arrivey's top targets last season was Kendall Worth, a 6-1, 195-pound senior who snared a team-high 43 passes for 481 yards and four scores. "He knows how to get open," Henderson said of Worth.
On the ground, the Mountaineers – who next week play at Angelo State – look to Austin Ekeler, a 5-8, 191-pound running back who as a freshman in 2013 averaged 117 yards a game and 5.8 yards a carry while scoring seven TDs. "He really balances their offense," Henderson said.
Henderson also singled out junior punter Dakota Swinehart, a preseason all-conference pick who "hangs the ball a long time."
Defensively, Henderson said the Mountaineers sported the No. 1 rush defense in the RMAC last season.
"They're really tough and play a lot of players," the coach said, adding that 6-1, 217-pound senior linebacker Jaden Terry, the Mountaineers' top tackler last season with 87 stops, "seems to be a lot of the key to what they do. He plays the run extremely well, but also is a good pass defender."
Western State Colorado has suffered through 11 straight losing seasons, dating back to 2002 when the Mountaineers went 5-5. Western almost broke the string last year when its team dropped five games by single digits, including two by two points and two by a single point.
"They pretty well played everybody real close," Henderson said. "And most of the time there weren't many points scored. We need to be able to get them to give us the football and us to be able to produce points with it when we have it."
The Pioneers did an excellent job last week of getting Arizona Christian to give them the ball, producing five takeaways and coming away with a plus-four turnover ratio. Further, Henderson pointed out that the Wayland defense forced Arizona Christian's offense into 11 3-and-outs.
"We put them in some tough situations, and they did a good job of coming through," Henderson said of his defense. "When you hold someone to seven yards rushing, that's unreal."
Just like last week when the Pioneers played their season-opener against an Arizona Christian team that had already played a game this season, Henderson isn't too concerned with the fact Wayland has a game under its belt and Western doesn't. He said the teams traded three game films from last season for scouting purposes.
One thing the coach does feel will be in Wayland's favor is playing at home. While upwards to 100 Wayland fans made it to Phoenix last weekend, he said playing in front of a home crowd for the first time this year will be exhilarating.
"It will be good to have the Wayland family all right here," he said.
And it will be even better if the Pioneers can pick up another victory.
"We just need to keep it rolling."
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