Eastern Oregon at
Azusa Pacific

Saturday (Oct. 29)

Cougar Stadium, 6 p.m.

Records:

Azusa Pacific – 4-3

Eastern Oregon – 4-2

THIS WEEK: Revenge may be a factor, but the NAIA’s No. 14-ranked Azusa Pacific has more pressing issues at hand when it hosts No. 23 Eastern Oregon, Saturday (Oct. 29) at 6 p.m. Both teams are battling the same NAIA playoff berth, and while the victor can keep its eyes on the prize, the loser can kiss goodbye any playoff hopes.

RADIO: The Azusa Pacific-Eastern Oregon game can be heard live on the Internet via KAPU radio. All the action will be called by Andrew Wheeler, Alex Charles and Christen Buckner with the pre-game show beginning at 5:45 p.m.

TICKETS: Tickets for the game are $5 for adults and $3 for students with ID. Children under 12 are free.

DIRECTIONS (from Eastern Oregon): Take the 84 Freeway east to the 15 Freeway south. In Southern California, take the 210 Freeway west toward Pasadena. Exit Citrus Ave and turn left on frontage road. Go 1 block and turn right onto Citrus Ave. Cross Alosta Ave., and turn right in main entrance onto campus. The stadium will be on the left.

HOW IT SHAPES: Azusa Pacific and Eastern Oregon are 2 of 3 independents currently ranked in the NAIA Top 25 (Webber International out of Florida is the other). The highest ranked independent in the final NAIA Coaches Poll (Nov. 13) will receive an automatic berth into the NAIA playoff series as long as it is ranked in the Top 20. It is likely that only 1 of the 3 independents, if any, currently ranked will earn a playoff berth, making Saturday’s game between Azusa Pacific and Eastern Oregon all the more important. And if Azusa Pacific gets by Eastern Oregon, No. 21-ranked Valley City State quietly awaits for the Cougars’ Nov. 10 arrival in Fargo, N.D.

SERIES NOTES: Eastern Oregon has won the only other previous meeting with Azusa Pacific, shocking the then No.6-ranked Cougars, 14-10, last year in La Grande, Ore. The Cougars, who were playing without starting QB Sean Davis (injury), nonetheless took a 10-2 lead into the second quarter. The Mountaineers, who scored their lone TD on a trick play and kept the Cougars scoreless over their final 9 possession, forcing turnovers on Azusa Pacific’s last 2 drives, both of which moved inside the EOU 25-yard line. Along with No. 1-ranked and eventual national champ Carroll College, Eastern Oregon was the only other team to beat Azusa Pacific in 2004.

SEASON REVIEW TO DATE: After dropping its first 2 games to start the season (a program first since 1997), Azusa Pacific has rebounded quite nicely to win 4 of its past 5 games, including wins over NCAA Division II Humboldt State (Cougars’ first win in Arcata since 1997) and Western New Mexico. The lone loss in that stretch was to NCAA Division I-AA Sacramento State (41-19). The Cougars are coming off a much-needed bye week after playing 4 straight physically imposing teams in Humboldt State, Southern Oregon, Sacramento State and Western New Mexico. The Cougars made a switch at QB prior to the Sacramento State game, opting for junior Rudy Carlton in place of Sean Davis, a 28-game starter over the previous 2-plus seasons. Carlton came off the bench in the Southern Oregon game and since then has completed 46-of-90 passes for 542 yards. Likewise, the Cougar defense has picked up the pace, allowing just 55 points in the 4 victories (13.8 avg.) while producing 9 takeaways.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: Azusa Pacific, which has won its past 6 home games, is 18-1 at home since 2002 with the only setback coming at the hands of No. 1 Carroll (12-0) last year. Over the past 3 years at home, the Cougars are winning games by an average score of 30-12. Since its 1998 NAIA championship season, Azusa Pacific is 38-5 in Cougar Stadium.

vs. NAIA: Azusa Pacific, the only NAIA school in California that sponsors football and 1 of only 3 west of the Rockies (Eastern Oregon and Southern Oregon are the others), doesn’t get many opportunities to play fellow NAIA member institutions. In fact, the Cougars have played just 28 NAIA teams over the past 7-plus seasons and are 17-11 in those games since 1998.

ABOUT THE COACHES: Azusa Pacific head coach Peter Shinnick, son of former Baltimore Colt linebacker and UCLA All-American Don Shinnick, is now in his seventh season at the Cougar helm. He is currently 51-20 as a head coach, and is now second on Azusa Pacific’s all-time win list (Jim Milhon, 1978-94, leads with 81 Cougar victories). Shinnick just brought Azusa Pacific through its best 6-year span in program history, guiding the Cougars to victory in 47 of the past 65 games, which includes an impressive 28-6 record over the past 3 seasons. In Shinnick’s tenure the Cougars have appeared in 69 of 80 NAIA Coaches Top 25 Polls, including the past 43 in a row, which has translated into 4 NAIA playoff berths, 2 of which had the Cougars advance to the semifinals. Shinnick has coached 22 All-Americans, 11 scholar-athletes and 73 school records have been broken since his 1999 arrival.

Former Cal State Northridge and L.A. Valley head coach Jim Fenwick is in his fourth season at the helm of the Eastern Oregon program. Fenwick enjoyed a successful career at the San Fernando Valley schools before moving on to become an assistant at the University of New Mexico. He took over the Eastern Oregon program in 2002 and is engineering an outstanding turnaround of a program that struggled to put together winning campaigns. Currently 21-27 overall as a 4-year head coach (15-21 at EOU), he has built a Mountaineer program that a year ago went 6-4 despite Fenwick missing nearly the entire season with a bout with acute lymphocytic leukemia that required a bone marrow transplant. He returned for the Mountaineers’ game vs. Azusa Pacific and guided his team to a 14-10 upset of the No. 6-ranked Cougars. Fenwick’s impact on the program resulted in EOU being ranked No. 17 in the NAIA earlier this season, the highest national ranking for the Mountaineers since the were No. 11 in the final poll of 1980. He is hoping to lead EOU to its first back-to-back winning seasons since 1979-80. A 1974 graduate of Wichita State, Fenwick was the Shockers’ leading rushing in 1972 and 1973.

NATIONAL RANKINGS: Azusa Pacific is ranked No. 14 in this week’s NAIA Coaches Top 25 Poll. The Cougars have appeared in 43 consecutive NAIA Polls dating back to Sept. 17, 2002.

Eastern Oregon, which has been ranked in the past 5 weekly NAIA Coaches Top 25 Polls, is ranked No. 23 this week. On Oct. 10, the Mountaineers were ranked No. 17 in the NAIA, their highest ranking since finishing the 1980 season No. 11 in the NAIA.

LAST WEEK: Azusa Pacific enjoyed a well-needed bye, its first of the season, taking last Saturday off after holding on for a 20-13 over NCAA Division II Western New Mexico 2 weeks ago in Azusa. Two Cougar fourth-quarter field goals proved to be the difference as Azusa Pacific forced turnovers on each of the Mustangs’ final 3 drives.

Eastern Oregon rolled out to a 38-0 lead through 3 quarters and cruised in for a 38-7 victory over Rocky Mountain College, a team the Mountaineers beat just 22-19 earlier in the season. Tyronne Gross rushed for 88 yards and 2 TDs, including one on a 68-yard dash that put the Mountaineers up 28-0 early in the third quarter. Senior QB Scott Jensen was an efficient 19-for-24 for 291 yards and 1 TD, a 62-yard bomb to Deandre Amos.

GETTING HIS KICKS: Senior place-kicker Mike Betancourth, who a year ago led the NAIA with 19 field goals made, is likely the top place-kicker in the NAIA and one of the best in all of college football. He has made 10-of-13 attempts this season, including 5 over 40 yards in length. In addition, he has converted 20 of his past 23 attempts, which included a school-record 12 straight that stretched from last year into this year’s season-opener at San Diego. Twice he has booted 52-yard field goals, including one at Sacramento State earlier this year, just 2 yards shy of Brad Kramer’s 1974 school-record 54 yards (he kicked a 52-yarder last year against Valley City State). For his career, he has 29 made field goals in just 21 games and is only 7 field goals shy of All-American Devon Jones’ (1978-81) school career-record of 36 that he established over the course of 4 seasons. Betancourth is 29-for-39 (.746) for his career and his 135 points scored are ninth on Azusa Pacific’s all-time chart. Additionally, he has made 39 consecutive PATs.

ALL-AMERICAN PLAY Senior LB Stephen Holte, a 2004 NAIA All-American first teamer who has never missed a game in his Cougar career starting the past 40 games in a row, is playing even better than he was a year ago. Last year, Holte averaged 7.1 tackles a game, but through 7 contests this year, he is averaging a hefty 14.1 tackles per outings. Against the NAIA’s No. 1-ranked Carroll (Sept. 10), he recorded 21 take-downs, just 1 shy of the school record. He came back against Willamette and registered another 18 tackles. Holte also tops the team with 10 tackles for loss, 4 QB sacks, and 3 interceptions. His next pick will be the most by a Cougar linebacker since Greg Smith’s 5 interceptions in 1995.

LIGHTING THE LAMP Junior RB Marcus Lampkin has emerged not only the Cougars’ top back this year, but he is proving to be one of the best in program history. Though just 5-foot-6, 170 pounds, he stands large in this year’s Cougar offense, currently topping the team in rushing (85.4 yards/g). The former walk-on transfer from Lewis & Clark has strung together 5 straight 100-yard games (543 yards in the past 5 games) and has 6 century-rushing efforts in his career (only 8 other Cougars have registered more). He is the first Cougar to string together 5 straight 100-yard rushing games since 2-time All-American Jack Williams did so to close the 1999 campaign. Cougar legend Christian Okoye (1989 AFC Player of the Year at Kansas City) set the standard with 8 consecutive 100-yard rushing games in 1986. He had 7 straight in 1985. Lampkin leads the team with 811 all-purpose yards (115.9 avg./g).

CATCHING ON: Junior WR Micah Staley has taken advantage of Azusa Pacific’s QB switch of 3 games ago in which Rudy Carlton took over the signal-calling duties. Through the first 4 games of the season Staley had just 6 receptions for 66 yards, a far cry from the pace he set as a 2003 freshman at NCAA Division II national champ Grand Valley State when he had 51 grabs, 12 of which went for TD. However, Carlton has developed a bond with Staley, and over the past 3 games Staley has 17 catches for 244 yards (14.4 avg.) and is now the team co-leader with 23 receptions.

ABOUT THE MOUNTAINEERS: Eastern Oregon, out of La Grande, Ore., is an NAIA independent but a provisional member of the Frontier Conference, home of the 3-time defending champion Carroll College. Under fourth-year coach Jim Fenwick, EOU has turned around its fortunes on the gridiron and is developing into a playoff contender, as evidenced by the magnitude of Saturday’s contest with Azusa Pacific. Last year’s victory over the Cougars catapulted the Mountaineer program onto the NAIA scene, and this year’s success is only a continuation of what began a year ago. Eastern Oregon has won 8 of its past 11 games, including an impressive 24-10 thumping of No. 10-ranked Montana Tech on the road back on Sept. 24. Other Mountaineer victories this season include a 22-19 verdict at Rocky Mountain, a 24-14 win at home over Whitworth and last week’s 38-7 thumping of Rocky Mountain again, this time at home. The Mountaineers opened the season by falling at home to Carroll, 44-14. Two weeks, they were upset on the road at Montana State-Northern, 35-14.

The Mountaineers have relied on a strong defense that has yielded just 50 points in their 4 victories while allowing the foe just 84 rushing yards a game in those 4 contests. Senior QB Scott Jensen, who had a rough go vs. Azusa Pacific last year (just 40 passing yards and sacked 5 times), is putting together a sterling 2005 campaign in which to date he has completed 62% (117-for-189) of his passes for a whopping 1,513 yards (252 avg./game) and 6 TDs. The San Fernando Valley native out of Birmingham High has been intercepted just twice. He has used no less than 14 different receivers, but his favorite target is junior WR Jomo Wilson, who has 23 catches for 354 yards (15.4 avg.) and 2 TDs. The Mountaineers are anything but a one-trick pony; they can run with the ball as well. Senior Tyronne Goss is averaging a hefty 6.5 yards a carry and 107.2 rushing yards a game. He has scored a team-high 9 TDs this season. Overall, EOU is averaging 402 yards of offense each game.

FOR PETE’S SAKE: “We’re doing great right now and are as healthy as we have been all season,” said Cougar coach Peter Shinnick. “The bye was very advantageous for us, and now we just have to see if we accumulated any rust during the time off.

“This has to be the biggest game of the year for us because of the implications. If we win out, we’re control our own destiny in terms of the playoffs. We’re in a good position as long as we win out. If we don’t win, we’ve sealed our fate for what our season is going to look like. However, I think we’ve already played a few of these games. Going into the Humboldt State game we knew that if lost that at 1-3 good things are not going to happen. The same was true for the game 2 weeks ago against Western New Mexico. So really, we’ve been through this and know what to expect and how to handle a game that has so much riding on it.

“We knew with the early injuries we suffered and the fact that we had 6 new starters that it was going to take a few weeks for our defense to gel. And, if you look at what we’ve done after week 3, we’ve done some very good things on defense. They are playing the best they have all year. They have a good grasp of the scheme and now it’s just a matter of executing on a play-by-play basis.

“Eastern Oregon is really going to test us defensively. They’ve done a great job of establishing a balanced offense. (Quarterback Scott) Jensen has a much better receiving corps around him than when we played them last year. And (Tyronne) Gross is a great running back. He is difficult to contain and tough to tackle. He is shifty and makes a lot of cuts. He is as athletic a running back as we have seen this season. We have to keep their receivers in front us, and contain Gross, and that’s not something many people have done.”