On Saturday September 21, Saint Xavier is playing their toughest game of the season against the Wisconsin Whitewater Warhawks.
Wisconsin Whitewater is not just your average NCAA division III team, they are known as one of the most dominant programs in the history of division three football. The Warhawks have won a division III national championship in 2014, as well as, six of such championships in the last twelve years.
Current coach, Kevin Bullis, was an assistant on five of the six championship winning teams and is primed on winning his first national championship as a head coach this year.
Wisconsin Whitewater is coming in with a 2-0 record and ranked 3rd in the NCAA division III preseason coaches poll. The Warhawks have looked really dominant in their two wins, even winning the games by a combined 45 points.
The Warhawks are led on offense by starting quarterback Zach Oles who so far has 419 yards in the air and 3 touchdowns. This isn’t his only talent on offense though, because he also contributed to 71 yard on the ground and has one touchdown. He’s not the only threat on the ground for the Warhawks who have a steady stable of running backs who have together contributed for nearly 200 rushing yards a game.
While the offense has been very good for Wisconsin Whitewater the defense is what really makes them a juggernaut.
In the past two games, the defense has yet to allow more than ten points to be scored by the opposing teams. They have the 27th best scoring defense and the 16th best defense in terms of total yards, however what makes the defense elite is their ability to get takeaways.
They have forced four fumbles and three interception in their two games. These seven takeaways have led the Warhawks to being the defense with the 9th most takeaways in all of NCAA’s third division. The standout player on the defense so far is defensive back Mark Mcgrath. He has been a ballhawk in the secondary this year having all three of the Warhawks interceptions. He has even contributed seven tackles for the warhawks meaning that even if he does let the receiver catch a pass, he still probably won’t be going very far with it.
Saint Xavier is going to need to play really well for a chance at an upset.
First and foremost, they will need to limit or completely eliminate turnovers. If they can do this, then even when SXU doesn’t score they will still force the Warhawks to overcome bad field position to win the game.
While I think the Cougars have a real shot at pulling off the upset, I think that they will probably come up short. Wisconsin Whitewater has too explosive of an offense to shut down along with too many playmakers on defense to not force a couple of turnovers over the course of the game. These turnover are what I think are going to cost SXU the game.