What: CUC football v. Lakeland
Where: Concordia Stadium, River Forest, IL
When: Saturday, October 5 at 1:00 P.M.

This Saturday is the day that football coaches around the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference have had circled on their calendars since the schedule first came out. The 12th season of NACC football begins with four games on Saturday, including the Lakeland Muskies coming to River Forest for a 1:00 kickoff against the Concordia-Chicago Cougars.

Looking at results from the NACC teams' non-conference games, CUC head coach Jason Aubry notes that "a lot of the teams appear very similar, and it's the team that makes the fewest amount of mistakes that is going to come out on top." That statement could probably be made for this particular game as well, and Aubry referenced how the Cougars responded to a week-two loss to Olivet College, in which mistakes in the second quarter ultimately made the difference. "We made the adjustments beginning in the second half of that game, and that carried over into the following week of practice and finally a good result at Finlandia (a 23-12 victory)."

The bye week was welcome for some of the players nursing injuries, but Aubry has seen the team come back and prepare to tackle the conference season one game at a time, beginning with Lakeland. "I challenged the team this week to raise their intensity level, their level of play," said Aubry. "We need to approach this game with a different mental state."  

Lance Moise's run at Khyree Copeland's all-time rushing record stalled at Finlandia two weeks ago when he was forced to leave the game in the first quarter after scoring his 43rd career rushing touchdown (and tying Copeland's career record in that category). While the Cougars expect that Moise will be able to resume his pursuit of Copeland's record of 3.957 yards on Saturday, they know that Tylor Martens is capable of leading CUC's ground game if called upon. Finlandia found that out first-hand when Martens rushed for 163 yards on 36 carries with one touchdown in helping CUC to the 23-12 win in the Sept. 21 game.

On defense, the Cougars have limited opponents to 111.0 rushing yards per game, but the pass rush has opened some eyes as well. CUC has brought down the quarterback 11 times for -67 yards, led by Matt Henning and Keshaun Paisley with 2.5 sacks each. Henning leads the Cougars with 29 tackles (17 solo), followed by Tyler Dudley with 19 tackles (12 solo). Dudley also made his first interception of 2019 in the Finlandia game.

The Lakeland Muskies enter play this weekend with a loss to Carroll University, a win over Kalamazoo College and a loss to the University of Wisconsin - Platteville. Scoring points has not been a problem for Lakeland, and many of their touchdowns have come from big plays. Against Carroll, they scored on a 66-yard run by Larry Rivers and a 43-yard pass play. A 33-yard pass featured in the win over Kalamazoo, while last week against UWP, the Muskies had a 62-yard pass reception on their side as well as a 92-yard run by Dezmon Eddie. Lakeland's offense is split almost 50/50 between rushing (229.3 yards per game) and passing (240.0). Rivers is averaging 142.0 rushing yards per game, while Charl'Tez Nunnery and Jaidyn Wilson have both seen time at quarterback.

Defensively, Lakeland has been susceptible to the pass, with opponents averaging 259.7 per game as opposed to just 117.3 on the ground. Shazon Crutcher has been their most impactful player with 25 tackles (16 solo) including four for -16 yards, two sacks for -11 yards and ibe fumble recovery. Sam Bartlett has also been in opponents' backfields often with 6.5 tackles for -23 yards, including three sacks for -16 yards.

The link for the live broadcast of the CUC-Lakeland game can be found at www.cucougars.com/coverage. The pre-game show begins at 12:45 p.m., followed by Ryan Fahey's play-by-play account.