FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- The Northern Arizona football team is road-tested. After dropping their season opener at Arizona State, the Lumberjacks have won four straight away from Flagstaff, winning games in Las Vegas, Montana, North Dakota and Colorado.
NAU takes on Idaho State on Saturday at Holt Arena with a chance to extend its overall winning streak to eight games and set up the opportunity for a historic finish at home.
“This is the sixth out of nine games that have been on the road,” said NAU coach Jerome Souers. “Our guys have handled that mentality well. We can’t let up. We have another week where we have to travel to the unfriendly confines of an opponent and play in their stadium in front of their fans.”
The Lumberjacks, who are ranked 12th in the country in The Sports Network FCS poll, escaped with a 12-10 victory at Northern Colorado last week, extending the team’s win streak to seven games. NAU will be trying for an 8-1 start for just the second time in school history (the Lumberjacks went 8-1 in 1957 and started 9-0 in 1958) and the first eight-game winning streak since 1958, when the Lumberjacks opened the season 11-0 and played for the NAIA national championship at the Holiday Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“It takes energy and great preparation,” said Souers. “We have to be ready to play another Big Sky Conference team. Throw the records out. We have to maintain a mentality of four quarters of play and have a stronger quality of play than we had last Saturday. We had too many turnovers. We understand what that causes and what the penalties can do to us. We need a better overall team effort.”
NAU will take on an Idaho State team that is 1-7 overall and winless in the Big Sky at 0-5.
“Our focus has been better practices and having more energy and enthusiasm with what we are doing,” said Souers. “We are looking for the carry over come Saturday.
“We are a program that gets better every week,” said Souers. “If you are
not getting better, you are getting worse. We need to maintain that
positive growth curve and demand that our overall quality of play
improves.”
NAU leads the all-time series with Idaho State 31-17-1. The Lumberjacks are 13-14 overall in Pocatello but have won the last three meetings on the road against the Bengals and each of the last seven overall meetings. NAU has scored 32 or more points against Idaho State in six of the last seven meetings and posted 52 points in Pocatello in 2008.
Idaho State enters the game last in the conference in rushing defense, allowing 339 yards per game while allowing over 560 yards of total offense. NAU running back Zach Bauman has rushed for 331 yards in two career
games against the Bengals, posting a career-high 219 yards in 2011 after going for 112 yards as a freshman in Pocatello in 2010.
With the win over Northern Colorado last week and losses by Cal Poly and Eastern Washington, NAU moved into sole possession of first place in the Big Sky at 5-0. The Lumberjacks control their destiny for a league title with three games left in the regular season after being picked seventh by the coaches and ninth by the media in the preseason polls.
