Raiders battle Cougars on Saturday

Saturday, November 1

Murfreesboro, TN

2:30 PM

Middle Tennessee

BYU

10/31/2014 8:00:00 AM | Football

MT looking for 8th straight home win

By: @MTAthletics

MURFREESBORO - Perhaps the most unique opponent in the long, storied history of Horace Jones Field will challenge Middle Tennessee on Saturday afternoon as the Blue Raiders host Brigham Young University at 2:30 PM.

BYU will travel some 1,650 miles from Provo, Utah to Murfreesboro for the game, which will be televised live on the CBS Sports Network. It will mark the longest distance a Blue Raider football opponent has ever traveled for a game at Middle Tennessee. And despite the distance, BYU fans have already purchased nearly 4,000 tickets to the game.

Also, the Cougars will be the first team to visit Floyd Stadium with a national championship in their possession. BYU defeated Michigan in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego in 1984 to claim the mythical national title as other major contenders all struggled in other bowls. When all the games had been played, BYU was the last team left with a perfect record.

The MT-BYU game will be on both radio and television. It will be televised live on the CBS Sports Network with Rich Waltz calling the action, Jay Feely handling color commentary, and Cassie Gallo reporting from the sidelines.

The Blue Raider Network, with veteran Chip Walters handling play-by-play and former MT linebacker Dennis Burke providing color analysis, will be broadcasting over a multi-station network, with WGNS Radio in Murfreesboro (1450 AM) as the anchor station.

Social Media opportunities include Game Hashtag: #TRUEGrit; Twitter: @MTathletics; Facebook.com/BlueRaiderAthletics, and Instagram: MTAthletics.

While all of the hype of a national program coming to town has the fans excited, Coach Rick Stockstill and his Blue Raiders are much more concerned about taking care of business on the playing field than all of the accolades that BYU will be bringing. Middle Tennessee will be seeking to even the two-game series at one win each after falling to the Cougars 37-10 last September in Provo.

In that game, the Blue Raiders grabbed a 10-7 lead in the first quarter on a 42-yard field goal by Cody Clark and a 16-yard scoring pass from Logan Kilgore to WR Marcus Henry.

Then BYU came roaring back behind the running and passing of quarterback Taysom Hill, who led the team in both categories. Hill rushed 18 times for 165 yards, and passed for 177 yards on 10 completions in 14 attempts. It was Hill's 50-yard scoring scamper midway thru the second quarter that put the Cougars ahead for good.
Back for his senior season this fall, Hill led BYU to four consecutive wins to open the season, including a 41-7 dismantling of Texas, and had the Cougars nationally-ranked.

What started as a dream season for BYU turned into a nightmare in the fifth game when Hill suffered a season-ending broken leg. Since then, the Cougars have lost four consecutive starts to even their record at 4-4.

Nevertheless, the folks that enjoy trying to guess who will win each game, and by how much, believe that BYU will triumph over the Blue Raiders by a touchdown.

Stockstill pointed out at his weekly media briefing that he has not mentioned Hill to his team, and that he and his staff are much more concerned about what Middle Tennessee can do on offense than they are about what BYU can do.

"We know that BYU has replaced Hill with another very good player at quarterback, because they have a lot of good players," noted Stockstill.
"Our primary concern is being able to move the ball on their defense, since establishing the run is one of the keys to our offense. We have to be able to run the ball to make our offense go, and BYU has a bunch of big, strong, long-length guys up front on defense that will present a real challenge to us, and that is what we are focusing on."

For the first time this season, the Blue Raiders will come into a game following an open date, and Stockstill feels this will have a positive impact on the teams' game preparation, as well as how they play on Saturday.

"We went eight consecutive weeks without a break, longer than that if you count pre-season practice," pointed out Stockstill. "I have never been part of a team that has gone that long without a break in the schedule, and we were looking forward to it. It gave us a chance to heal up from nagging injuries, and to focus more clearly on the last third of the season."

Redshirt freshman quarterback Austin Grammer could well be a key to the game for Middle Tennessee. Grammer has shown steady improvement over the course of the first two-thirds of the season. He has matured as a field general, and gives the Blue Raiders a running threat at quarterback that has not been available over the previous three or four seasons.

He joins a trio of running backs (Jordan Parker, Shane Tucker and Reggie Whatley) that have combined to give the Blue Raiders a consistent running attack.

Whatley, in particular, is a crowd favorite with his blazing speed. At 5-7, 175 pounds, he gets into high gear in a hurry. When the crowd sees him burst thru the line with football in hand, a roar goes up because there is always a good chance he will take it to the house.

And it was Whatley's 67-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter that put the game away against UAB last week. After his 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against Western Kentucky in 2012, during which he reversed his field and simply out-ran WKU defenders who had an angle on him, Stockstill simply noted in his post-game interview that Whatley "is a fast, fast young man."

MT may well need Whatley's speed on several occasions during the game with BYU.

After the BYU game, the Blue Raiders will have an open date the following week (Nov. 8^th) before starting a three-game stretch of Conference USA games that will determine, if, when and where the team will play in a bowl game.