Northern Notebook: McKinley stands alone in MSU-N history

There weren't a lot of bright spots for the Montana State University-Northern Lights during Saturday's dreary, rain-soaked game against Montana Tech at Blue Pony Stadium.

But, once again, Northern junior tailback Zach McKinley managed to break through the clouds and shine.

With his 151 yards against the Orediggers Saturday, McKinley passed Stephen Silva to become MSU-N's all-time leading rusher. The former standout from Great Falls now has 2,905 career rushing yards in an astonishing two seasons and two games. Silva set the previous record of 2,856 yards from 2009-2012.

"Zach is a great runner and he is also a great leader for us," Northern head coach Aaron Christensen said. "Things were tough today, but he still did some good things for us. But he is also a guy that we can point to off the field and say 'hey guys, this is how it should be done.'

"The biggest thing for me is the guys up front that are blocking for me and coach (Cody) O'Neil," McKinley said. "He is always coaching them up and they are always there for me, so I do my best to try and give back to them."

At the half, it looked questionable as to whether McKinley would reach 100 yards rushing in the game, but thanks to some big runs, including a 30-yarder in the fourth quarter, he rebounded to surpass the 100-yard mark for the 14th time in his already illustrious career.

"Coach kind of settled us down and told us that all we needed to do was come out and do what we are supposed to be doing," McKinley said. "In the first half, we were missing assignments and that was something that we tried to fix in the second half."

After his outstanding performance against Montana Tech, McKinley now holds every single rushing record there is at Northern. He's already an All-Conference standout in 2014 and he's sure to be an NAIA All-American in 2015.

And what's amazing is, he has a lot of football left to be played in what has already been the most storied rushing career in Lights' history.

Progress Made

As Montana State University-Northern head coach Aaron Christensen correctly stated following the Lights' 58-14 defeat at the hands of the Montana Tech Orediggers Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium, his team has a lot of work to do.

Yes, they do, but, despite the fact that the Lights got dominated at home in their season-opening game against Tech, there are some bright spots to take away from the outing.

One thing that is indisputable is that the Lights are a young football team. Coach Christensen brought in over 40 freshman in this year's recruiting class and while many of these young men are talented, most of them are not ready for the week-to-week grind of the Frontier conference.

That doesn't mean that progress can't be made and fortunately for the Lights, there was some progress, particularly in the second half, against a Montana Tech team that may prove to be better than expected as the season moves on.

Search for Consistency

Consistency was a word used often by Christensen when describing what he needs to see more of from his offense. In the first half of Saturday's clash with Tech, the Lights could not find any of it. Through two quarters, the Lights had accumulated just four total first downs. Yet, in the third quarter, after making some halftime adjustments, the Lights were finally able to generate some offense. Quarterback Jess Krahn started completing passes and after struggling to get starting running back Zach McKinley going, the Lights finally started to sustain a ground game.

By the end of the game, Northern had found the end zone twice to finish with 14 points, which was a positive sign for an offense that was held to just seven points in its first game of the season at Dickinson State.

But, if the Lights are going to be more competitive in the Frontier going forward this season, they will need to find their consistency on offense much sooner than the third quarter and with defenses focusing so heavily on McKinley, the onus might be on Krahn and the Lights' passing game to get off to a quicker start.

McQueary makes a big difference for Diggers

Quinn McQueary, who played his high school football at Manhattan and recently transferred to Tech from Montana State, showed just how important a good quarterback can be. Last fall, the Diggers came to Northern and lost a nail-biter 37-34, on a missed field goal in the final seconds. But, this time around, with McQueary at quarterback, there would be no such drama.

And in his first career start in the Frontier Conference, it didn't take long for McQueary to make an impact, as he hit wide receiver Chris Lachance for a 55-yard touchdown to give the Diggers an early lead. But, the damage was far from over, as McQueary toyed with the Northern defense all day to the tune of 281 total yards and two touchdowns. He also completed 18-of-21 passes and made the Tech offense look dangerous for the first time in a long time.

"Quinn was very productive and our receivers were on point with their routs," Tech head coach Chuck Morrell said. "They did a great job getting up field after the catch."

Big rushing numbers

While McKinley is clearly still the top running back in the Frontier Conference, the Diggers also showed Saturday that they have a pair of talented runners in Nolan Saraceni and Zach Winfield. Last season, Saraceni totaled 438 rushing yards and one touchdown serving as the team's primary backup but on Saturday in Havre, he showed why he is good enough to be the full-time bell cow.

After averaging 6.4 yards per attempt a season ago, Saraceni averaged an incredible 8.5 yards per carry against Northern and found the end zone four times, including a 62-yard scamper in the third quarter that ended any hope of an MSU-N comeback. In all, the Diggers rushed for 320 yards against a talented Lights' defensive front, which may have been one of the biggest surprises to take away from each team's Frontier opener.