Lone Star Conference Football: Three Big Takeaways After Week 9
Lone Star Conference Football: Three Big Takeaways After Week 9
Here’s a look back at some of the top takeaways following Week 9 in Lone Star Conference football.
Following another week of Lone Star Conference football, just one team now stands alone as an unbeaten team in league play.
Angelo State holds the golden ticket to a potential LSC title, and with a few season-defining games coming up for the Rams, time will tell whether or not ASU will be hoisting up the conference championship soon.
That being said, teams right on the Rams’ heels get a crack at ASU over the coming weeks, meaning that most high-stakes games of the LSC slate are right on the horizon.
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Plus, with official Super Region 4 rankings out and a clearer understanding of where the playoff picture lies, there’s even more to play for beyond just a league title for several LSC teams.
Bring on the rest of the regular season, because it’s bound to get a bit wacky.
Here’s a look back at some of the top takeaways following Week 9 in Lone Star Conference football:
Javelinas Ding WOU’s Title Hopes
Following back-to-back shutout, blowout losses to Angelo State and Central Washington in its past two games heading into this past weekend, Texas A&M-Kingsville’s playoff and LSC title hopes were all but ground into dust.
Don’t tell the Javelinas that they’re probably only playing for pride at the moment, however, as they had no problem potentially upending the aspirations of a different LSC team last Saturday.
TAMUK made the long trek to Western Oregon to hand the Wolves their first LSC loss of the season, winning 21-14 off of the back of a 276-yard passing day from Javelinas quarterback Jalen Brown — in his first appearance of the season, no less, coming in for the inactive Teague Sedtal — and a two-sack day (with a forced and recovered fumble) from defensive end Demarcus Hendricks.
WOU outgained the Javelinas on offense 341-310, but TAMUK’s ability to close out drives, scoring touchdowns on all three of its redzone trips, proved crucial when the Wolves were only able to punctuate two of their series inside the 20-yard-line with scores. The Javelinas also limited the Wolves’ offensive impact beyond quarterback Jordan McCarty, who had 169 passing yards and 86 rushing yards but just a rushing score to show for it.
The good news for Western Oregon was that this past weekend’s loss was its first of the year against a D-II team, having dropped its first two games of the season to FCS squads Idaho State and Cal Poly, and that WOU is still in both the LSC championship and playoff hunt with games against league heavyweights Angelo State and Central Washington still to go. Plus, the NCAA released its first regional rankings of the season Monday, and the Wolves made the top-10 list in Super Region 4 with the Rams and Wildcats.
But the loss does mean that the margin of error is shrinking for WOU now, though, and if it wants to keep its surprise challenge at the top of the conference going (after being picked to finish eighth in the league in the preseason), the wins must keep coming.
Angelo State Controls Its Destiny
Now that Western Oregon has lost a LSC game, it means that if Angelo State (which has a solo lead atop the conference at 6-0 in LSC play) wins out across the remainder of the regular season, nothing will stop the Rams from having an undisputed conference championship.
In a tuneup game for what’s to come for ASU, it had no problems handling first-year D-II program Sul Ross State at home last Saturday as it ripped apart the Lobos by a 57-10 scoreline to make it six straight wins — all in LSC play — following an 0-2 start.
Sul Ross may have scored first through a field goal, but it didn’t hold onto the lead for long as ASU had a pick-six through Eric Rascoe and a short-yardage touchdown run from Cameron Dischler to have a double-digit advantage by the end of the first quarter. The Lobos answered with an Andrew Martinez touchdown pass to Yamil Oaxaca early in the second to make it 14-10, but that was all the remaining scoring that the Rams allowed Sul Ross to get as they scored 43 unanswered points from then on out to cruise to a 47-point win.
Five Ram rushing touchdowns, with two each coming from Dischler and Jayden Jones, made for a great homecoming night at ASU — and a great way to sharpen some things up before a defining two-game stretch comes the Rams’ way.
ASU will next get Central Washington and Western Oregon in back-to-back weeks, with wins in both games meaning that the Rams would clinch the LSC title (and probably a spot in the D-II playoffs, dependent on how the selection committee sees fits) regardless of what happens elsewhere and/or in their regular-season finale against West Texas A&M.
The Rams’ only game so far this season against a team currently trending into being in the playoff field, Emporia State, beat ASU on Sept. 7. That makes the next two weeks especially important to prove to the selection committee that the Rams belong in a chaotic Super Region 4 when all sorts of chaos is happening elsewhere in the region’s other feeder leagues, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.
Chile Bowl Delivers With Lots of Offense
Eastern New Mexico and Western New Mexico aren’t having the best of seasons, with both teams being under .500 and out of the title picture.
At the same time, however, it only upped the stakes for their annual rivalry game known as the Chile Bowl, which the Mustangs had won the previous two years after breaking what had been a 16-game winning streak from ENMU from 1994-2021. Neither team’s seasons will likely end with LSC hardware and/or a playoff appearance, meaning that winning the rivalry game will be the best way to look back on their 2024 campaigns fondly.
And with a 41-34 victory in Portales, the Greyhounds are the ones with bragging rights over the Mustangs for 2024.
ENMU’s electric rushing offense, the second-best in all of D-II only behind defending national champion Harding, scampered for 495 yards and six touchdowns in a wild edition of the Chile Bowl, which saw the Greyhounds break out to a 20-0 first-quarter lead and the Mustangs threaten a comeback late with a strong aerial attack.
Ron Craten was a madman in the backfield, taking the bulk of ENMU’s carries and running riot as he had 26 touches for 216 yards — a single-game high in the LSC this season — and three touchdowns, earning himself LSC Offensive Player of the Week honors. And while WNMU’s Josh Magana was great in his own right under center, going 29-for-41 passing for 274 yards and five touchdowns, the Greyhounds’ rapid start and machine-like option offense that averaged eight yards per carry was just too much for the Mustangs to overcome.
Having now finally gotten a LSC win, ENMU has a great chance to make it two against Sul Ross State this weekend on the road in the second time it has played the Lobos this season, having also taken them down 36-17 in a nonconference game in Portales back on Sept. 7.
AFCA NCAA Division II Football Rankings In Week 10
- Valdosta St. (Ga.) (18) 7-0 - Prev. 2
- Ferris St. (Mich.) (8) 7-1 - Prev. 3
- Ouachita Baptist (Ark.) (2) 8-0 - Prev. 5
- Kutztown (Pa.) 8-0 - Prev. 4
- Pittsburg St. (Kan.) (1) 7-1 - Prev. 6
- Harding (Ark.) 7-1 - Prev. 7
- Grand Valley St. (Mich.) 7-1 - Prev. 1
- Western Colorado 8-0 - Prev. 8
- Charleston (W.Va.) 8-0 - Prev. 11
- Colorado St.-Pueblo 7-1 - Prev. 12
- Emporia St. (Kan.) 7-1 - Prev. 14
- Lenoir-Rhyne (N.C.) 7-1 - Prev. 16
- Central Oklahoma 7-1 - Prev. 9
- Slippery Rock (Pa.) 6-1 - Prev. 15
- West Alabama 6-1 - Prev. 18
- Johnson C. Smith (N.C.) 8-0 - Prev. 19
- Central Washington 6-2 - Prev. 20
- Colorado School of Mines 6-2 - Prev. 10
- Indianapolis (Ind.) 7-1 - Prev. 21
- Augustana (S.D.) 6-2 - Prev. 25
- West Florida 5-2 - Prev. 23
- Minnesota St. 6-2 - Prev. 13
- California (Pa.) 7-1 - Prev. NR
- Carson-Newman (Tenn.) 7-1 - Prev. 17
- Findlay (Ohio) 7-1 - Prev. NR
Dropped Out: Southern Arkansas (22), Delta St. (Miss.) (24)
Others Receiving Votes: Angelo St. (Tex.), 46; Emory & Henry (Va.), 45; Wingate (N.C.), 35; Virginia Union, 31; Sioux Falls (S.D.), 28; Southern Arkansas, 20; Ashland (Ohio), 7; Davenport (Mich.), 7; Assumption (Mass.), 3; Colorado Mesa, 3; Fort Hays St. (Kan.), 3; Delta St. (Miss.), 2; Miles (Ala.), 1; New Haven (Conn.), 1; Saginaw Valley St. (Mich.), 1.
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