Frontier Notebook: Frontier is still up for grabs

After a week off, the Frontier Conference football season will resume in earnest this weekend. And there’s a lot of questions still to be answered.

In fact, it’s almost like the season hasn’t started yet, because no one has really taken control of the Frontier title chase as of yet.

For a brief moment, it looked like Carroll College had seized command when the Fighting Saints beat Southern Oregon to open the season last month in Helena. But Montana Tech erased that control when the Orediggers beat the Saints the following week in Butte.

Then, Tech turned right around and lost to Eastern Oregon, while UM-Western’s 3-0 start to the season was halted by a 10-9 loss to Carroll at home two weeks ago. Meanwhile, SOU hasn’t lost since the opening-day setback at Carroll, so that leaves the league in a four-way tie for first place heading into this weekend’s games. And Rocky Mountain College is just a game behind the four Frontier leaders.

Of course, the league champion will emerge eventually, and several games in the second half of the season will have plenty to do with that.

SOU, which holds the No. 2 ranking in the NAIA Coaches Poll, will visit No. 16 Western Saturday in Dillon, and that game will have lasting implications on the rest of the Frontier season. SOU then turns around and hosts a rematch with the Saints Oct. 24, while Carroll gets Tech at home Oct. 24. Those three games could very well determine who wins the league title, and how many teams the Frontier will get in the upcoming NAIA playoffs.

Of course, if rankings had anything to do with it, the Frontier would be sitting pretty. Carroll is just behind SOU in the coaches poll, at No. 4, while Western is No. 16 and Tech is No. 17. For the second week in a row, RMC also received votes in the poll.

New kids in town

One game that won’t have playoff implications this weekend is the Montana State University-Northern Lights’ home tilt with the College of Idaho Yotes Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium. Nevertheless, both teams will be fighting to the bitter end to win.

Northern has begun its season with five straight losses, and the Lights have really struggled in their last three games, losing 46-0 at RMC, 44-2 at home to UM-Western and 82-9 at SOU two weeks ago.

So, MSU-N head coach Aaron Christensen used the bye week to get healthy, but also emphasize some basic football principles.

“We got beat pretty bad at Southern Oregon,” Christensen said. “That’s a really good team (Raiders) and we didn’t play very well, so it was a tough combination. But when we looked at the film, we noticed we just weren’t really giving as good of an effort as we needed to. We got way down, and against a team like that, that’s tough, but we have to give a great effort every single play, and that’s something we really emphasized during the bye week.”

This week, however, the Lights have turned their attention to the Yotes, who come to Havre for the first time in school history — and while that’s exciting, the Yotes, too, are struggling. C of I hasn’t won a game since beating Eastern Oregon 40-28 back on Aug. 29, so the Yotes are certainly coming to Havre hungry.

C of I head coach Mike Moroski knew there would be growing pains. The Yotes are only in their second season of Frontier Conference football — or any football for that matter — in more than four decades. And while last season saw some highs, including a last-second, 35-31 win over MSU-N at home, things have gotten a little more daunting this season.

Still, the Yotes are in the process of building a program from scratch, much like Northern did almost 20 years ago. Those things take time, and couple that with the fact that C of I resurrected football in the toughest conference in the NAIA, and seasons like the one the Yotes are having are bound to happen.

Yet, Moroski has something special brewing in Caldwell, Idaho. The Yotes have a splashy, two-year old stadium and are averaging over 5,000 fans per home game. They also have a roster rich in in-state talent as C of I boasts 48 players from the state of Idaho. Add to that a dazzling dual-threat quarterback in TeeJay Gordon, and All-Conference sophomore tight end in Marcus Lenhart, a great running game and a tough-nosed 4-2-5 defense, and the Yotes don’t look like a team at the bottom of the Frontier Conference.

And they’ll certainly be a handful for the Lights in what will be their historical first trip inside famed Blue Pony Stadium this Saturday.

Defensive

While fans are used to seeing Frontier teams light up local scoreboards like a pinball machine, the league is also very defensive this season — in particular at UM-Western and Carroll College.

The Bulldogs may be coming off a home loss to Carroll, but they come into Saturday’s showdown with SOU boasting the top-ranked defense in the NAIA. Western allows an NAIA best nine points per game, and they rank in the Top 10 in the NAIA in seven different defensive categories. Linebackers A.J. Wilson and Joe Coker are All-American shoe-ins, but as a team, the Bulldogs are as stingy as anyone in the country.

Carroll too has been very good. In conference play, the Saints are allowing just 21 points per game, which is third behind another stout defense at Montana Tech. The Saints have a stalwart leading the way in the secondary in All-American safety James Dowgin, while Tech’s defense revolves around tackling machine, and senior linebacker David Meis.

Meanwhile, at Northern, Tyler Craig is once again racking up sacks at an alarming rate, and he’s in a race with Western’s Reno Ward in that category. Ward and Craig each have five sacks and eight tackles for loss this season, which are both tops in the Frontier, and among the NAIA’s leaders.

So, while there’s no doubt, the offenses in the league are still dangerous, it’s defense which is really stepping to the forefront across the conference this season.

Leaders

Speaking of leaders, heading into the halfway point of the season, Montana Tech’s Nolan Saraceni is starting to run away with the Frontier rushing title. The junior tailback from Billings is averaging 141 yards per game, while MSU-N’s Zach McKinley is third at 97 yards per outing.

Rocky quarterback Chase White has started to emerge as a top passer in the league. He leads the Frontier with 263 passing yards per game, and also leads the league in total offense. Teammate and star WR Andre McCullouch is tops in the league with 106 yards and eight catches per game.

On defense, aside from Ward and Craig, EOU’s Gary Posten is tops in the conference with 13.1 tackles per game, while C of I’s Nate Moore has a league-best five interceptions.