Northern football ready for non-conference matchup

The Montana State University-Northern football team has faced much adversity during the front half of its conference schedule. While the Lights have had some opportunities, they have failed to pick up a win in their first six games in the Frontier Conference.

Now the Lights will get a break from conference play as they host Simon Fraser University this Saturday at Tilleman Field. But even though it is not a conference game, MSU-N head coach Andrew Rolin believes his players will need to bring all they have to win their first game this fall.

"We've got to go out and do what we need to do," Rolin said. "They like to throw the football and we know what they like to do structurally defensively and we need to attack it and play our best game to win."

Simon Fraser has an 0-4 overall record and an 0-2 record in the NCAA DII Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Simon Fraser is a Division II school located in Burnaby, Canada in the Vancouver area and is the only Canadian school playing NCAA football. This game will be the first matchup between MSU-N and Simon Fraser in both programs' history.

The Simon Fraser offense has only averaged 10.3 points per game, but there are some strong spots on that side of the ball. Justin Seiber leads the offense at quarterback and has a 53.97 completion percentage, 784 passing yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions this season.

Seiber has a couple of playmakers on the perimeter that the Lights will have to contain. Riley Morrison leads Simon Fraser with 28 catches and 251 receiving yards this season. But Caelin Johnson is the offense's big playmaker as he has 226 yards and three touchdowns on 22.6 yards a catch this season. There is also Dallas Dixon who averages 16.8 yards a catch this fall.

"They love to throw the football and I just think we're going to have to get a good pass rush up front. We're going to have to cover," Rolin said. "It goes back to our technique, our alignment and our assignment and our technique has to be sound."

To counteract the Simon Fraser offense, the Lights will have to get their offense going. The strength of the MSU-N offense has been the running game led by Izayah Boss who has 498 rushing yards and five total touchdowns this season. However, he only managed to run for 28 yards last week against Carroll College, so getting the ground game against Simon Fraser will be key to moving the chains.

"It's going to come down to knowing our assignments," Rolin said about getting the ground game on track. "We've got to be able to make in-game adjustments and we got to play penalty free."

If the Lights' ground game is going to get going, they will need to keep an eye on Simon Fraser's best defensive players. Linebacker Griffin Barrett leads Simon Fraser with 50 total tackles this season, 20 more than the next player on his team. The Lights will also need to keep defensive lineman Jeremiah Famor out of the backfield who leads Simon Fraser with 2.5 tackles for loss.

As the running game tries to get back on track, the Lights will also need to figure out their starting quarterback for this week. One option is Kaymen Cureton who started the first five games of the season for the Lights. During that stretch, he completed 45 percent of his passes for 577 yards, three touchdowns and six interceptions. However, Devonte Armstrong has played the last game and a half at quarterback as he has completed 53.3 percent of his passes for 217 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

Whoever gets the start at quarterback for the Lights will have to go against a Simon Fraser secondary that has failed to pick off a quarterback this season. However, there are still playmakers such as Evan Currie and Jerrell Cummings who have a combined nine pass breakups this season.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MSU-N has not played a non-conference game since the 2019 season opener against Arizona Christian University. Since Saturday's game is a non-conference game, the Lights only have film to evaluate Simon Fraser. But Rolin believes if he and his team focus on themselves, they will be fine.

"We do our best to evaluate the actual personnel and talent that we can based off the film and the level of competition that they're playing," Rolin said. "Go off of that and just focus on ourselves and how we can attack their vulnerabilities."

While this game gives the Lights a break from their conference play, Rolin views it just like any other game.

"It's just one more game for us to play to our potential and to execute at a high level consistently," Rolin said. "We're focused on these guys and we're focused on what we need to do to put ourselves in position to win."

MSU-N football will play Simon Fraser at Tilleman Field Saturday at 1 p.m. The game is the start of a three-game homestand for the Lights.