The Golden Horseshoe has been secured, but it's no time for the boys to rest on their laurels because the Lumberjacks of Northern Arizona are coming to town. The Lumberjacks come to Davis with a 4-2 record and were ranked 13th in FCS going into their match up against Montana State; we'll see what they're ranked here in a day or two though. Here are their games to date...

@ Arizona State (4-1) - L 19-38
vs Utah Tech (1-5) - W 38-31 (Aggies won 31-24 @ Utah Tech)
@ Southern Utah (1-5) - W 52-49 (Aggies won 50-34 vs Southern Utah)
vs Incarnate Word (2-4) - W 31-23
@ Portland State (0-6) - W 31-17
vs Montana State (4-2) - L 10-34

We have two mutual opponents on the schedule so far and both teams came out with 2 wins. Their game against Southern Utah was much closer than ours though. The win against Incarnate Word looked good at the time as they were a ranked opponent, but they are now sporting a 2-4 record and look to be struggling. Montana State is a very good team, but you would have to think that NAU is disappointed it wasn't more competitive with both teams being ranked.

Offensively, NAU is scoring 30.2 points per game with 265.8 yards passing and 141.3 yards rushing per game. Defensively, they are allowing opponents to score 32 points per game with 229.5 yards passing and 166.5 yards rushing per game.

The Lumberjacks are led by junior QB Ty Pennington who so far on the season has completed 61.8% of his passes for 1557 yards with 9 passing TDs to only 2 INTs. He's also gained 194 rushing yards on 43 attempts with 2 rushing TDs. Pennington has a plethora of weapons at WR, but he has 1 clear top target and that is redshirt senior WR Kolbe Katsis who has 27 receptions for 486 yards with 4 receiving TDs. Next closest receivers have 16 receptions, 190 yards, and 2 receiving TDs.

In addition to their productive passing game, the Lumberjacks are sport a dynamic duo at RB. Their main guy is redshirt junior RB Seth Cromwell who has gained 314 yards on 71 carries (4.2 yards per rush) with 6 rushing TDs. They have also given plenty of juice, however, to sophomore RB Quran Gossett who has gained 239 yards on 49 carries (4.6 yards per rush) with 3 rushing TDs.

On defense they are led by their do-it-all guy in redshirt senior LB Travis Arena who has 47 total tackles with 5 sacks. The Lumberjacks have forced 4 INTs so far this season and half of them have gone to senior S Jaylen Wesley who also has a team high 5 PBUs. Interestingly enough, through 6 games their defense has forced only 1 and recovered 0 fumbles.

Their senior punter, Ben D'Aquila, has a very strong leg as he's averaging 47.6 yards per boot which would put him top 10 statistically in the FBS. Their kicker, sophomore Samuel Hunsaker, is 6/7 on field goal attempts and is averaging 62 yards per kickoff with 15 of 28 kickoffs going for touchbacks. Their punt returns have been nothing special so far this season, but the aforementioned WR Kolbe Katsis is one of their kick returners and is averaging 25.4 yards per return, so given the chance he will do some damage.

Overall, this should be a good match up. I think NAUs ranking going into this last week was a little inflated due to a win against UIW who is struggling more than folks thought they would (preseason top 5 ranked, but now sitting with a 2-4 record) and then they ran into the MSU meat grinder. Their passing game is very productive and could have field day against our battered secondary. We just didn't run the ball much against Poly, but I think we are going to have to have Fisher and Vargas churning out yards to keep their offense off the field in order to win this game.

Update Massey has the Aggies with a 65% chance of a W

GO AGS!