Football faces off against the Sioux Falls Cougars
John Laforest
Staff Writer
The Mavericks will start their two-game homestand against the Sioux Falls Cougars this Saturday at the Blake.
The Mavs are coming off a dominant victory, in which they completely manhandled the Wayne State Wildcats last Saturday.
MSU destroyed Wayne State, 55-2, and were dominant on both offense and defense last week.
With the win, Minnesota State stays atop the rankings and makes them one of two Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference teams ranked in the AFCA poll.
MSU has ranked No. 1 for an impressive six straight week, while Minnesota Duluth holds the fifth spot in the poll after defeating Minnesota Crookston, 63-7.
The team doesn’t just own the top spot in the AFCA poll, they also claimed the top spot in another form of ranking. The MSU football team has also moved up to the top spot in the NCAA Super Region Four rankings.
The NSIC, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the Lone Star Conference and the Great Northwest Athletic Conference make up the 41-team NCAA Super Region Four this season.
This is very significant for seeding going into the playoffs with just a couple games remaining in the season as the mavericks look have home field advantage in the playoffs.
The NCAA Division II Football Championship provides for a maximum field of 28 teams, seven from each of the four super regions. 12 first-round games will be conducted on the campus of one of the competing institutions. The top seed in each super region will receive a bye in the first round of the playoffs. The Mavericks at this moment are set to receive one of those byes.
With the Sioux Falls Cougars coming into town, the team is coming off a pair of impressive wins against MSU-Moorhead and Upper Iowa, winning 55-21 and 34-7 respectively. Sioux Falls has an overall record of 6-3, with two of their losses coming on the road.
The Cougars have a strong rushing attack led by Gabriel Watson, who has 23 touchdowns on the season and averages nearly 190 yards a game on the ground.
The Mavericks will look to slow him down on Saturday with a strong defense of their own, which is only allowing 43 yards a game. Game time is at noon this Saturday as the team looks to increase its winning streak to 10 games.
Feature photo by Mansoor Ahmad | MSU Reporter.