Southern Oregon (NAIA) at Portland State

[JALMOND]

Kickoff 1:00 PDT at Portland's PGE Park. Home opener for the Vikings. QB Hubel will start, having thrown for 250+ yards last week against Oregon State. Injured players Woods and McClintock are expected to play. Tuneup for the Vikings before Montana next week and Weber State the week after. First meeting since 1975. Southern Oregon leads the overall series 11-8-1, but has not won since 1962. The Raiders have played FCS teams before (San Diego, UC-Davis, Sac State) so they are aware of this level. Weather is supposed to be clear skies and temps near 90.

Radio: KPAM 800 AM in Portland

[JALMOND]

Geez, I am not doing too well this morning. The radio in Portland is KPDQ 800 AM. KPAM is the Beavers network.

[BlackFalkin]

PSU IS GOING TO START OUT 1-3

[dbackjon]

Should be easy game for PSU

[JALMOND]

Final

Portland State 34
Southern Oregon 10

Sloppy game as we had four muffed punts (lost three of them). We did give up a sack and Hubel threw two interceptions. We took a step or two backward from where we were last week against Oregon State. My stats had us with five total fumbles, two interceptions, and numerous misreads. Still, no stupid penalties and we found a kicker (Zach Brown, 2FG's, 4PAT's). Also, Hubel had a ton of passing yards and has been extremely accurate in his throws (into coverage, the ball still gets to the receiver, whether they catch it is another story). Time to get ready for Montana.

[frinq]

You're right, it was sloppy. Is this due to taking them too lightly? Don't know - but we'll sure have to tighten up for Montana. Yes, it's nice to have kicking on firm footing. And the special teams were better. Offense is still struggling to find a pattern - are we going to have to bring Kavanaugh in everytime we need a run? How predictable is that?! On the whole, we still look much better than last year. How much better remains to be seen.

[Eric]

I may be ignorant, but how do you guys think the NAIA stacks up against D2 or D3? I just remember one year that St. Francis from Indiana beat Indiana State 42-0. Of course, the Sycamores are hardly representative of the FCS, so you know

[JALMOND]

I may be ignorant, but how do you guys think the NAIA stacks up against D2 or D3? I just remember one year that St. Francis from Indiana beat Indiana State 42-0. Of course, the Sycamores are hardly representative of the FCS, so you know

I went to an NAIA school in college (Rocky Mountain College) and was a student manager/video coordinator there for the football team. I think a fair assessment would be to place the NAIA somewhere between DII and DIII. I think our conference would have done really well against DIII, but only the best could compete with DII (and DI). This was my case for an argument in my dicussions with Montana playing Western State and not their little brother, Carroll College. Also, when I was at Rocky Mountain, we did go play Chadron State (and we did beat them).

[JALMOND]

You're right, it was sloppy. Is this due to taking them too lightly? Don't know - but we'll sure have to tighten up for Montana. Yes, it's nice to have kicking on firm footing. And the special teams were better. Offense is still struggling to find a pattern - are we going to have to bring Kavanaugh in everytime we need a run? How predictable is that?! On the whole, we still look much better than last year. How much better remains to be seen.

One of the things that was not addressed in this game (and that has been an ongoing problem since the Glanville/Davis regime took over) was how to score from the red zone (inside 20 yards). Big plays are exciting to watch, but you are not going to win a lot if you cannot score TD's from the red zone.