UIndy Greyhounds (4-5, 3-3) at Missouri S&T Miners (4-5, 3-3)
Saturday, Nov. 5, 2 p.m. ET, Rolla, Mo.
ON TAP
In their final road contest of the year, the Greyhounds travel to Rolla, Mo., to face the Missouri S&T Miners in a Saturday matinee. Both teams sport matching overall records of 4-5 as well as 3-3 marks in conference play.
ABOUT MISSOURI S&T
Joining UIndy, Quincy and Saint Joseph's, the Miners enter the week in a four-way tie for fourth in the GLVC standings. They fell back to the pack with a 45-22 loss at then-25th-ranked Southwest Baptist last weekend. SBU quarterback and GLVC Offensive Player of the Year-candidate TJ Edwards had a monster game, throwing for 220 yards and a pair of TDs and running for 143 yards and two more scores.
For the season, the Miner offensive is led by Braxton Graham, who tops the conference with 57 receptions while ranking second with 885 receiving yards. The sophomore wideout has scored eight touchdowns this year (7 rec, 1 pr) while racking up five 100-yard receiving games.
HOUNDS vs. MINERS
UIndy has won all four meetings with S&T since the two first hooked up in 2012. The Hounds have scored at least 30 points in all four contests, including a GLVC-title-clinching
38-14 win on Senior Night in Indianapolis last November. The Greyhounds scored 38 unanswered points in the first three quarters before the Miners broke the shutout with a pair of fourth-quarter TDs against UIndy's No. 2s.
Andrew Walker led all players with 129 rushing yards, QB
Connor Barthel threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns, while
Reece Horn scored a pair of receiving TDs while adding a third on a 47-yard punt return.
This week, one facet to watch will be the Miners' pass rush versus the Hounds' protection. S&T ranks in the top 25 in Division II in both sacks (22nd) and tackles for a loss (14th), while the Greyhounds fall in the same group in sacks (17th) and TFLs (16th) allowed.
LAST TIME OUT
The Hounds won their second game in a row with a
34-12 victory against William Jewell. In front of a their home fans as well as a national audience watching on ESPN3 and the ESPN app, the Greyhounds held the visiting Cardinals to just 78 total yards and zero points in the second half to pull away. Walker racked up 114 of his 157 rushing yards in the final half while scoring a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to seal it.
RUSH HOUR
Walker's season-high rushing total last week marked the second 100-yard game of the season and 11th of the career of the Chicago native. He continues to move up the UIndy all-time list in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. He jumped up four spots to No. 7 in career rushing yards (2,435), while breaking a tied for second in rushing TDs (34).
MAYBE NEXT WEEK
Despite entering last Saturday's game just nine yards shy of breaking the school's single-season kickoff return yardage record, junior
Tuwan Payton remains second behind Ryan Forney's 609 yards from 2009. William Jewell wisely kicked away from UIndy's dynamic returner, who averages 30.1 yards per kickoff return, good for tops in the league and eighth in D-II.
Payton also ranks second on UIndy's career kickoff return list, as his 1,328 yards trail only the 1,624 compiled by Forney from 2008-11.
FRESH START
Forced into the starting QB role after
Jake Purichia went down with injury versus McKendree, redshirt-freshman
Bryce Stancombe has put in a solid performance as the Greyhound signal caller. The Bloomington, Ind., product has started each of the last three games, tossing two touchdowns and zero interceptions on each occasion. Saturday, he will face an S&T defense that ranks fourth in the GLVC in passing yards allowed per game (195.9).
#SACKTEAM
The Greyhound pass rush has cranked it up the past two weeks, amassing a combined 10 sacks versus Lincoln and Jewell. Sophomore
Lucas Rice notched two sacks in each week to bring his season total to a team-best 7.0 -- one half-sack ahead of redshirt-freshman
Jacob Schmatz. With two games still remaining, Rice and Schmatz are the first pair of UIndy players to both have at least six sacks since Vince Maida (7.5) and Mike Phillips (7.0) turned the trick in 2013. No single Greyhound has had as many as eight sacks since 2005.
Â
INTERCEPT COURSE
Senior cornerback Korye Rogan is quietly racking up a healthy number of interceptions this year. After picking off a William Jewell pass late in the game last Saturday, the local product and North Central High School grad now has six on the season -- the highest total by a Greyhound in 16 years. His tally of 0.67 INTs per game is good for first in the GLVC and fourth in the nation.
CENTURY CLUB
Senior linebackers
Derrick Bryant and
Rob Dury hit matching milestones versus Jewell, as both eclipsed triple digits in tackles for the season. Dury now has three consecutive 100-tackles seasons to his credit, while Bryant notched his first after compiling 99 last year. Both rank in the top 10 in the nation in tackles per game on the season.
UIndy's single-season leader in tackles is Todd Liette, who racked up a lofty 198 total tackles in 1996. Below is a list of leaders in the category since Coach Bart took over in 2010.
Â
IT'S UP & IT'S GOOD
Junior kicker
Brad Schickel is currently the most-accurate kicker in school history, hitting on 85.7 percent of his collegiate field goal attempts. He has made 30 field goals to date, good for fourth in the UIndy career annals.
WINNING WAYS
With two games remaining on the schedule, the Greyhounds will need to win out to ensure a winning season. Coach Bart has finished .500 or better in each of his six seasons at UIndy, as well as his eight seasons overall as a college head coach.
AROUND THE GLVC
Truman remains atop the
GLVC standings as the only team still unbeaten in league play. Last week, the Bulldogs outlasted a tough Quincy squad, 38-28, as redshirt-freshman QB Jaden Barr threw two touchdowns and rushed for three more.
Southwest Baptist (6-1) remained just one game back of Truman in the loss column after downing S&T, while McKendree (4-2) is two back with two to play after routing Lincoln, 55-3.
UIndy is the four-time defending GLVC champion but will not be able to catch Truman in its quest for a fifth conference crown. Nevertheless, the Hounds are 33-4 versus GLVC opponents since the conference began sponsoring football in 2012.
REGION ROUND-UP
Coming off a 28-17 win versus Findlay last week, GLIAC-power Grand Valley State remained at the top of the
Super Region Four rankings. The nationally No. 2-ranked Lakers are the lone undefeated team in the region and one of only six unbeatens in Division II.
The aforementioned Southwest Baptist and Truman both appear in the top 10, coming in at No. 3 and No. 6, respectively. The top-seven teams from each of the country's four super regions will qualify for the postseason. The GLVC has never had two teams qualify for the playoffs in the same year.
A total of 45 teams compete in Super Region 4, including members of the GLVC, Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (GLIAC), Lone Star Conference (LSC) and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC), as well as the emerging Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC).
The Greyhounds are currently out of the region top 10 after making the playoffs in three of the last four season.
Â
