It depends on how one looks at the situation.
At first glance, Saturday’s next game on the Murray State football schedule for 2014 really should have no conversations attached to it whatsoever. The Racers are playing — for only the sixth time in the 100-year history of the program — the top-ranked team in the nation in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as NCAA Division 1-AA). In this case, it is the gold-standard program of that level, North Dakota State, which has won 17 national championships, with nine of those coming in a 13-year stretch that ended two seasons ago.
The prevailing notion is probably along the lines “What chance do the Racers have?” Murray State is 1-6 as it still is in the early stages of a massive rebuild under first-year Head Coach Jody Wright. NDSU (7-1) just finished exacting a measure of revenge against South Dakota State this past weekend, beating the team that ended its reign over the FCS by winning the last two national titles.
In other words, the Racers are probably facing the tallest mountain they have tried to climb since entering the mighty Missouri Valley Football Conference. “What chance do they have?” seems like a reasonable question.
However, after showing obvious improvement in their past two games, both losses to deceptively-tough Indiana State and 20th-ranked Illinois State, the Racers appear to be entering Saturday’s monumental task riding a wave of confidence, a very nice thing to have at a time like this.
“I think we were a better football team last week against Illinois State (40-32 on homecoming at Roy Stewart Stadium) than we were a week before (in a 31-27 loss at Terre Haute that included some key late questionable calls against Indiana State) and that’s going to be our goal this week, to keep improving with every week,” said Wright, whose team’s record is laced with several competitive losses. He knows that, with only a play or two going differently in all three, the Racers’ record would look much different both overall and in Valley play (0-4).
This past Saturday’s loss to Illinois State seemed to be a cross section of how close games have not gone the Racers’ way. Wright pointed to a punt that, perhaps by miracle, the Racers did not block in the first half deep in Illinois State territory. There were several long passes that defenders were unable to attack, resulting in damaging long gains instead of possible interceptions. And, while the Racers did block a field goal, Wright said they had good chances at two others, including the eventual game clincher in the final two-or-so-minutes.
“Sometimes, we can’t control who we’re playing and how they’re playing, but I tell our guys all of time, ‘We can control how we play,’” Wright said. “There are so many things that we’ve got to get better but it’s a game of inches.”
One area where the Racers have made tremendous progress is turnovers. After really being hampered earlier in the season, the Racers are entering the NDSU game having committed none in the past two games. The Racers also forced a big miscue for Illinois State that kept them in that game when linebacker Justice Cross almost scored on an interception before halftime. Down 16-7, the Racers capitalized as quarterback Jayden Johannsen found receiver Elijah Downing between two defenders on a 24-yard scoring strike in the final minute of the second quarter.
The Racers also showed that they can stay competitive in the face of adversity. Against this same team a year earlier, the Racers had three turnovers in the second half that allowed the Redbirds, already up two scores, to turn the game into a 44-7 blowout. That day, the Racers also only generated 245 yards total offense.
Saturday, trailing by two scores again throughout the second half, Murray State stayed in the fight, amassing almost twice as many yards and reached the 30s against an MVFC opponent for the second time this season.
Still, what lies ahead for this week appears to be an altogether different challenge.
No team of this caliber has ever set foot for a football game in Murray. This is the team that football fans have become used to seeing play for the FCS title on national television each January, with an army of fans clad in green and gold turning the supposedly neutral site into a home game.
Except for the 2022 loss to SDSU in Frisco, Texas, the national title game has belonged to the Bison as they have won it nine times since 2011.
This is the program that has produced two quarterbacks that were selected in the first round of the NFL Draft in the past 15 years. One was Carson Wentz, who started for the Philadelphia team that won the Super Bowl in the 2017 season but did not play in the postseason after being injured. The other is current Green Bay starter Trey Lance.
Now, the Bison feature probably the next NFL quarterback that will come from this program in Cam Miller, who enters this week with 14 touchdowns and no interceptions.
“With their shifts and motions, you can tell how smart they are and that’s a credit to Cam Miller,” said Wright, whose program will be facing its most high-profile FCS opponent at quarterback since Eastern Illinois brought eventual Dallas Cowboys starter Tony Romo to Stewart in 2002 as the second-ranked team in the nation. However, Romo and his Panthers left Murray broken-hearted after Racer Hall of Famer and Murray High alum Shane Andrus nailed a 52-yard field goal at the buzzer for a 37-35 win that gave the Racers the Ohio Valley Conference title.
However, NDSU features several weapons, including another one named “Lance.”
“Yeah, with (receiver) Bryce Lance, you can tell he probably has caught quite a few balls from his brother,” Wright said of a player who had a huge game when the Bison made their first appearance on a national stage this season, a 31-25 loss on opening night at Colorado of the Football Bowl Championship’s Big 12 in Boulder.
Wright said that, in studying the Bison’s emotional 13-9 win over SDSU in Fargo, one thing really seemed to show about NDSU.
“They play relentless football,” he said of how this seemed to show most on the defensive side. “They’re flying to the ball, they arrive fast and, a lot of times, with bad intentions.”
Still, this represents a tremendous opportunity for the Racers as facing No. 1 does not happen every day. In fact, this is only sixth time in Racer history that a Murray State team has had the chance to take a shot at the nation’s best team, with Murray State yet to win a game under that circumstance.
However, as was the case in 2002, college football is a game where upsets do occur. And Wright intends to use that with his team as the visit from the Bison approaches.
“It would definitely be an upset to beat the number one team in the country,” he said. “When you put on the tape of North Dakota State playing, you know that you had better be motivated to try and match their style of play. You’ve got to give credit to their coaching staff (led by first-year Head Coach Tim Polasek) and their players because they are playing at an elite level.
“But there is not a program in this country that has won every single game and there is not a great football program that hasn’t been upset before.”
Along with a visit from a No.1 team (the first since Jacksonville State, Wright’s alma mater, visited the Racers in 2016), fans will have the chance to celebrate the Murray State Hall of Fame career of former defensive lineman Austen Lane as his jersey number — 97 — will be retired.
This is the first time NDSU has visited Murray and it will only be the teams’ second-ever encounter on the football field. The first one was last season with the Bison winning by a score of 38-6 at the FargoDome in a game where the Racers were ambushed, 28-3, in the first half before actually playing competitively with the Bison in the final 30 minutes.
Saturday will also mark the annual Salute to Services Day.
Where most games have had 2 p.m. kickoffs during the daytime for Murray State games so far this season, Saturday’s will be different, starting an hour earlier at 1.
Leave a Reply