ST. PAUL, Minn. – At long last, the University of Northwestern Football team was able to play in front of its home crowd on Saturday night, welcoming the University of Wisconsin-Stout to Reynolds Field. Northwestern fittingly wore its "blackout" uniforms under the lights and dark sky, and provided some offensive fireworks early. UW-Stout was able to provide a few more; however, pulling away for a 56-13 win despite UNW's best offensive output of the young season.
The Blue Devils for the ball first and made the most of it, driving 52 yards in eight plays for a touchdown. The Eagles needed just 1/8 of the plays to score on their opening drive, as
Basil Demco (Fontana, Wis./Big Foot) carried out a beautiful play-fake and found a wide-open
Braeden Little (Ladysmith, Wis./Ladysmith) down the seam for the freshman's first-career touchdown from 75 yards out. Unfortunately for Northwestern, Stout scored again just three plays later, and we officially had a shootout on our hands just 5:32 into the contest.
The points continued to add up as the Blue Devils blocked a punt and punched it in four plays later to make it 21-7 in the first quarter. Their lead grew to 28-7 early in the second quarter on another short touchdown run and was 42-7 by halftime. Coming out of the locker room, UNW once again channeled its post-locker room magic. Demco again found Little for a huge gain through the air, this time for 52 yards, to put the Eagles deep in opposing territory. After a couple of UW-Stout penalties moved the ball inside the five-yard line, Demco found
Will Schleicher (Victoria, Minn./Chanhassen) in the end zone for the second time this season to give Northwestern its biggest offensive total of the season thus far at 13 points.
The Blue Devils missed a field goal on their next possession, but scored a touchdown on the one that followed to take a 49-13 lead into the fourth quarter. The Eagles appeared to have something cooking on their first drive of the fourth quarter after
Trey Ulmer (West Melbourne, Fla./Heritage) hauled in a 14-yard reception and
Ashton Lofton (Colorado Springs, Colo./Colorado Springs Christian) dashed for 12 yards, but a sack was too much for UNW's offense to overcome as it punted back to Stout. The ensuing possession for the Devils resulted in the final touchdown of the night, giving us our final score of 56-13.
Demco finished the night 10-16 for 173 yards, two touchdowns and no turnovers, with 127 of those yards and one of the touchdowns to Little. Schleicher caught three passes for 25 yards and a score, while Lofton led the rushing attack with 24 yards on 12 attempts. Defensively,
Wes Schlabach (Spearfish, S.D./Rapid City Christian),
Austin Ahrendt (Nevis, Minn./Nevis Public) and
Ian Ahrendt (Nevis, Minn./Nevis Public) all tallied 10 tackles to lead the Eagles, while
Drake Lindberg (Keystone, S.D./Rapid City Christian) contributed nine.
Jayden Goodwin (New Richmond, Wis./Saint Croix Central) and
Joshua Popp (Atwood, Kan./Rawlins County) produced Northwestern's two tackles-for-loss, while
Clay Fee (Weyauwega, Wis./Weyauwega-Fremont),
Alex Schultz (Staples, Minn./Staples-Motley) and
Michael Montoya (Pueblo, Colo./Central) each broke up a pass.
UNW will be on a bye next week before opening up UMAC play on Saturday, October 4
th at 7:15 PM at Crown. The game can be seen on the UMAC Sports Network.
