The Colorado Mesa football team will play their final regular season game on the road on Saturday when they make the trek to Rapid City, S.D. to take on the South Dakota Mines Hardrockers at 12pm from O'Harra Stadium.
 
ANOTHER ONE
Colorado Mesa claimed their sixth player of the week award of the season after Darick Holmes was named the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week after his performance against Black Hills State. Holmes rushed for a career-high 190 yards on 14 carries and scored four touchdowns. It was the most rushing yards and touchdowns from a player since David Tann rushed for over 200 yards and five touchdowns against Dixie State in 2017.
 
Holmes joined his quarterback Karst Hunter as recipients of the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week honors and Remington Green and Brian Rattery as Defensive Player of the Week honorees. The six total awards are the most by the program since 2003 when the RMAC Championship team had 10 such honors.
 
ADDING ON
The Mavericks will be seeking out their eighth win of the season on Saturday against South Dakota Mines. If they win, the eight wins would be the most since the 2017 season.
 
When the sixth win of the season occurred, it gave the program its eighth straight winning season.
 
SINGLE SEASON ONSLAUGHT
Redshirt freshman quarterback Karst Hunter has a chance to put move up on a couple of the single season passing charts including completions, yards, and completion percentage.
 
Completions
Hunter enters the week No. 3 in single season completions with 169 and could move up to No. 2 on the list with eight completions against South Dakota Mines. He would move ahead of Sean Rubalcaba who had 176 completions in 2016.
 
Yards
The Miller, S.D. native has a chance to become the single season passing yards leader with a big game against the Hardrockers. He currently sits at No. 5 with 2,182 yards and would need 284 yards to pass Eystin Salum's 2017 total of 2,465 yards.
 
Completion Percentage
The South Dakota State transfer currently is the single season leader in completion percentage at 63.1 and has a 1.4 percentage edge on former NFL wide receiver Tony Martin who completed 61.7 percent of his passes in 1988.
 
PLAYOFF PICTURE
The Maverick playoff picture took a hit last week when the regional rankings came out on Monday afternoon and Colorado Mesa was listed as No. 10. Many factors go into those rankings including in-region win-loss record, strength of schedule, and wins against teams with a winning record.
 
Below is a list of games that will factor into the playoff chances of the Mavericks and who needs to win those matchups. All of these have implications but not all have to happen for the chances to improve.
 
Angelo State at Texas A&M-Kingsville, 7pm (CT) || CMU needs TAMU-Kingsville to win
Southwest Minnesota State at Augustana, 1pm (CT) || CMU needs SMSU to win
Mary at Bemidji State, 1pm (CT) || CMU needs Mary to win
CSU Pueblo at Western Colorado, 1pm || CMU needs Western Colorado to win
Simon Fraser at Central Washington, 1pm (PT) || CMU needs Simon Fraser to win
Northern State at Minnesota Duluth, 1:05pm (CT) || CMU needs Northern State to win
Texas Permian Basin at Midwestern State, 1pm (CT) || CMU needs UTPB to win
Upper Iowa at Sioux Falls, 1pm (CT) || CMU needs Upper Iowa to win
Chadron State at Black Hills State, 1pm || CMU needs Chadron State to win
 
212
You may hear or have heard the defense chanting "212" during the game or in practices last season and this season. This refers to the motto of the defense and we will try to give you a brief explanation where that comes from.
 
Water boils at 212 degrees and creates steam. Steam is extremely powerful and can power a locomotive which doesn't stop for anything in its path.
 
SERIES HISTORY WITH SOUTH DAKOTA MINES
Colorado Mesa owns a 4-1 series advantage over South Dakota Mines. The lone Hardrocker win in the series came last season in a 24-9 win in Grand Junction during the short COVID season. Prior to that, three of the matchups were decided by 10 points or less while two of those were just by one possession.
 
The lone lopsided win in the series came in 2017, a 69-7 win for the Mavericks in Rapid City.
 
SCOUTING THE HARDROCKERS
South Dakota Mines owns a 6-4 record on the season but just 5-4 in Division II matchups. Their biggest win of the year came last weekend in a 40-17 win over New Mexico Highlands in Las Vegas.
 
Quarterback Jayden Johannsen is the team's leading passer and rusher this season. Johannsen has rushed for 490 yards and eight touchdowns while throwing for 1,945 yards and 14 touchdowns. He rushed for 115 yards on 15 carries and three touchdowns in a win over Adams State.
 
On defense, Kyante Christian leads the Hardrockers in tackles with 66 and has added five and a half sacks in the ten games they have played this year. He had 11 tackles and two sacks against Chadron State while also having two and a half sacks against Fort Lewis.
 
THE COACH
Head coach Tremaine Jackson enters his second season at the helm of the Maverick football team. He guided Colorado Mesa to a 2-1 mark during the COVID shortened 2020 season.
 
He was hired in December 2019 just prior to the COVID pandemic and thus has had to wait almost 19 months to compete in his first game that could go towards a championship.
 
Coach Jackson has made several stops along his coaching path that ranges from all levels. Most recently he made stops at Texas State as the defensive line coach and at Abilene Christian as the defensive coordinator.
 
RMAC PRESEASON POLL
Colorado Mesa was picked to finish in fourth place in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference as voted on by the coaches. The Mavericks finished last season's abbreviated schedule with a 2-1 mark with wins over both Chadron State and Black Hills State. Their lone setback came to South Dakota Mines at home in what turned out to be the final game of the season.
 
Colorado School of Mines was selected to win the conference with seven first place votes and 76 points. Mines finished the 2019 season with a 12-1 mark and a perfect 10-0 mark in the RMAC.
 
CSU Pueblo was second in the poll followed by Chadron State to round out the top four.
 
ON THE HORIZON
Colorado Mesa will await word whether they have done enough to get into the NCAA Division II Playoffs on Sunday at 3pm. That is when the selection show will air with the Mavericks in Super Region IV, they will likely have to wait until the end of the show to find out. If they make it in, they will likely be on the road against Augustana likely.