A tough three-game road trip wore on the Fort Lewis College football team. Coming home Saturday won’t get any easier.
No. 13 Colorado State University-Pueblo (7-1, 6-1 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) will roll into Durango to meet the Skyhawks (3-5, 3-5 RMAC) at noon Saturday at Ray Dennison Memorial Field.
It will be a tough game for an FLC offense that hasn’t scored in its last nine quarters and was held to 10 points during the three-game road trip, with shutout losses of 42-0 and 31-0 by No. 9 Colorado School of Mines and Western Colorado the last two weeks, respectively.
But the Skyhawks won’t back down from the nationally-ranked ThunderWolves. The last two times CSU-Pueblo has visited Ray Dennison Memorial Field, FLC has been victorious. The first came in 2014 when FLC stunned the second-ranked ThunderWolves 23-22. It would be CSU-Pueblo’s only loss en route to a NCAA Division II national championship season.
In 2017, Fort Lewis stunned the 12th-ranked ThunderWolves 35-24.
“They are a good team. We know we have beaten them here the last two times they’ve been here. We can beat anybody when we do things the right way,” said FLC first-year head coach Brandon Crosby. “Obviously, the three-game road trip was really tough on us. But the guys are always excited to be at home and play in front of the crowd with their friends and family.
“We’ve had ups and downs this year. At the end of the day, we’re just a bunch of dudes who like to play football, hit each other and love the game and our teammates.”
Fort Lewis will try to get its sputtering offense fired up Saturday. Since the season-ending injury to starting quarterback Jake Lowry Week 4 at Black Hills State, the Skyhawks’ rushing attack has been dormant and is now last in the RMAC at only 84.8 yards per game, with most coming from Jeff Hansen. He has 494 yards and two rushing TDs this year.
In place of Lowry, Erik Ornduff has a net of only eight yards rushing and one TD. He has passed for four TDs and two interceptions to go with 701 yards and has completed 51.57% of his passes. Parker Strahler has been his go-to receiver with 33 catches for 308 yards and one TD this year. Isaac Leppke is coming off a career game at receiver and now has 200 yards and a team-high four TDs on 10 receptions.
“We came out of the gates strong being able to run the ball. Lowry is an extremely dynamic quarterback and very effective for us in the run game,” Crosby said. “When you lose a player like that, it changes your offense. Ornduff did a good job in the Adams game against man coverage. Since that, he’s kind of struggled finding a happy medium with run-pass options and reading coverages with safeties moving around and getting through his progressions quicker. That comes with experience, and this is really his first shot at it this year. We are hoping for him to move forward and end the season with him doing the right things and showing us what he can do.
“It’s a quarterback game. If you don’t have a trigger man, you’re going to live and die on the quarterback. Our defense is doing a good job, and we have to find a way to make it easier for them.”
FLC will face a CSU-Pueblo defense that has allowed only 17½ points per game. The ThunderWolves have 16 interceptions and seven fumble recoveries this year, as Luke Conilogue and Marcus Lawrence each have three interceptions.
The CSU-Pueblo defense also has a feared pass rush, as James Maxie has seven sacks and 76 total tackles this year. Jackson Wibbels has another six sacks.
CSU-Pueblo’s offense is quarterbacked by Jordan Kitna, son of former NFL starting QB Jon Kitna, the current QB coach of the Dallas Cowboys. He has thrown for 964 yards and four touchdowns to only one interception in six games played this season.
Kitna isn’t the only ThunderWolves player with NFL ties in the family. Running back Marcus Lindsay, who has 106 yards and three TDs in four games this season, including last week’s 52-12 romp of Adams State, is the brother of Broncos running back Phillip Lindsay.
The ground game for CSU-Pueblo is spread around several dynamic players. D.J. Penick is the team’s leading rusher at 581 yards and eight TDs in eight games. Austin Micci has 377 yards and three TDs.
It adds up to a tough task, though FLC’s defense ranks fourth in the RMAC having allowed only 20.6 points per game.
“It doesn’t matter who is in front of us. We have to execute what is coached throughout the week,” Crosby said. “Things are there when we watch film from these losses. People complain about schematics and this or that, but we have stuff there, we’re just not executing. It starts with coaching and players learning to execute the job and do what they’re coached to do.
“Regardless of what happens the last two games of this season, we are moving in the right direction. We are playing for our seniors, and our locker room is in a good spot. We need to put out a good product Saturday and keep moving forward.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
If you go
Who:
No. 13 CSU-Pueblo (7-1) at Fort Lewis College (3-5)
What:
Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference NCAA Division II football
When:
Noon Saturday
Where:
Ray Dennison Memorial Field
Twitter:
@jlivi2
