By Con Marshall
Two football teams seeking to get their offenses in gear and win some games will be meeting Saturday afternoon when the Chadron State Eagles host the Adams State Grizzlies in a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference contest. Kickoff will be at noon.
Chadron State has a 1-3 record while Adams State is 0-4. The Eagles got their win by a 17-10 score against the Jamestown Jimmies of North Dakota on Sept. 5. None of CSC’s other opponents has scored more than 18 points, but Nebraska-Kearney won the season-opener 18-6, and Colorado Mesa prevailed 18-3 last Saturday at Grand Junction. In the remaining game, Colorado Mines nipped the Eagles 13-12.
Adams State opened its season by tallying 36 points against Western New Mexico, but the Mustangs won 46-36. Since then the Grizzlies have scored just 24 points.
Texas Permian Basin won the second game 67-14, Western Colorado blanked the Grizzlies 38-0 the next week and Colorado State-Pueblo won by a 66-10 margin last Saturday.
Chadron State leads the all-time series with Adams State by a 28-6 margin. Adams State’s only win in Chadron during those 34 contests was in 1987, when the teams played for the first time and the Colorado team won 21-0.
A number of the games in the rivalry have been close but Chadron State has usually prevailed. For instance, two years ago the Eagles won 29-27 by completing a 67-yard drive when CSC’s 240-pound fullback Jalen Starks dove into the end zone with 68 seconds remaining.
Another highlight for the Eagles in that game saw Gunnar Jones kick two 57-yard field goals with the west wind in his back and also boot a 35-yarder into the wind that Jones said was probably his best kick of the day.