Scots plan to thwart Red Hawk revenge

Release Date: September 7, 2005

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Another team from Wisconsin with revenge on its mind will visit Monmouth College’s Bobby Woll Memorial Field on Saturday. Coach Steve Bell hopes his Fighting Scots are just as ready to make a strong stand against Ripon College as they were in last week’s convincing 40-26 victory over Concordia University.

The Falcons had hoped a sequence that saw Monmouth score 16 points in 25 seconds in last season’s opener was a fluke, but the Fighting Scots showed they were the real deal last Saturday. Mitch Tanney led the offense on five touchdown drives and the starting defensive unit surrendered just one score as Monmouth built a 40-6 fourth-quarter lead.

Two botched first-quarter punts by Ripon a year ago enabled Monmouth to cruise to a 21-0 lead just nine minutes into the game. The Scots went on to post a 45-21 victory.

“We can’t expect that to happen this year,” said Bell, whose team has won 23 of its last 26 games. “Ripon will come down ready to play. We can’t rest on what we’ve done.”

Bell said there are many reasons to respect this week’s opponent, and a main one will be the challenges the Red Hawks’ option-oriented attack present.

“They’re one game into the second year using this system,” said Bell. “They should be a lot better with it, and their quarterback is going to be a lot more comfortable. Defensively, we’ll play assignment football, and our people have got to know who they’ve got.”

The Red Hawks created enough missed assignments last week to rush for 278 yards and pick up a 20-18 victory over visiting Grinnell. Matt Birschbach rushed for 75 yards and a TD, and quarterback Bob Faulds added 71 yards on the ground and threw for 65 yards, all to Collin West.

“What we’ll see when we’re on offense is different also,” said Bell. “Ripon runs a 3-5, which causes problems because their tacklers are coming from different angles. Once again, we’ll have to be disciplined in our scheme.”

With Ripon only playing three men in the secondary, it would seem to mean that Bell will look to air it out. Mitch Tanney was 20-of-29 for 237 yards and four TDs against Concordia, while Ripon surrendered 258 passing yards against Grinnell. Tanney, in fact, could have thrown for five scores, but he underthrew an open route, resulting in just his fourth interception at Monmouth in 11 games.

The Scots won the turnover battle against Concordia, recovering three fumbles and picking off a pass while just suffering the one miscue themselves. Turnovers were also a key in last year’s win over Ripon, as the Scots added two fumble recoveries and two picks to the two botched Red Hawks punts. Meanwhile, Monmouth did not turn the ball over.

Recovering one of those fumbles vs. Concordia was linebacker Justin Zigler, who became the all-time tackle leader for the Scots on Saturday, passing Justin Oertle, who had 259 tackles in a career that spanned from 1999-2002.

“First and foremost, Justin is definitely the hardest-working individual on our team,” praised Bell. “Practice in and practice out and in the weight room, he just gets after it. It’s nice to see someone like that get recognition with the record, but he could care less about it. He’s a terrific athlete, who is big, fast and runs well. He makes a lot of big plays for us.”

Zigler knew his record-breaking day would come soon, but the Scots’ other impressive record on Saturday – Nathan Palkovic’s 45-yard field goal – came about in a different manner. With the Scots ahead 37-6, Bell opted to “test” his sophomore kicker, running a draw play on third-and-16 to set up the long attempt.

“I told Coach (Dave) Ragone that we were going to kick a field goal if we didn’t make the first down,” said Bell. “At some point, he may have to make a field goal like that to win a game. With his leg, it was definitely within his range.”

Both record-breakers were honored by the Midwest Conference as Performers of the Week. Those new marks were only part of a pretty solid day for Monmouth. The special teams play was decent, the Scots took good care of the ball and they were penalized just one time for five yards.

“We played pretty clean in that regard,” said Bell of the latter stat. “It was a very efficient game. That was a good non-conference game for us. Concordia was big up front and very athletic. The thing I liked the most is that our guys were playing hard. That caused some of the turnovers. We also limited their big plays, which is something we didn’t do against them last year.”

Something Monmouth didn’t do against Ripon last year was give them any reason for hope early on. If the Red Hawks can make a change in that department, they’ll make the Scots work hard for what would be the team’s ninth victory in a row.

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