The long awaited home opener for the Colorado Mesa Football team is here. Check out all the game notes and links to follow the game in this week's preview.

**For fans attending this weekend's game, please read about some of the new features available at the stadium and a couple of reminders FAN INFORMATION**

FIRST AND TEN
Colorado Mesa will open the home portion of their schedule against South Dakota Mines on Saturday at 1pm at Stocker Stadium. The South Dakota Mines Hardrockers will make the 626 mile trek to the Grand Valley. It will be the Hardrockers third longest trip of the season behind their trip to Missouri S&T and the trip to Fort Lewis later this season.

Colorado Mesa leads the brief history between the two schools 5-1. The lone Hardrocker win came during the 2020 COVID season when they came to Grand Junction and won 24-9. The Mavericks won last season's matchup 13-10 in Rapid City.

The Mavericks are scheduled to wear their brand new Mavroon jersey tops from Under Armour that features the new Mavroon RMAC Logo.

A QUICK LOOK BACK
Colorado Mesa extended it's winning streak in season openers to 10 games after a 37-14 win over the William Jewell Cardinals back on September 1. The Mavericks picked up 399 yards of total offense with 284 coming through the air and 115 yards on the ground. They averaged 5.2 yards per play and totaled 19 first downs in the game. The defense limited the Cardinals to 158 yards of total offense and just 2.5 yards per play. They amassed seven sacks as a team and forced six three-and-outs with five coming in the first half. The special teams was nearly perfect in the opener converting all four point after touchdowns and made all three field goal attempts.

Results during the Winning Streak
Sept. 7, 2013: vs. Menlo, 34-0
Sept. 6, 2014: vs. Dixie St., 44-37 OT
Sept. 5, 2015: at Dixie St., 43-3
Sept. 3, 2016: at Western Colo., 34-14
Aug. 21, 2017: vs. Western Colo., 49-23
Sept. 1, 2018: vs. S.D. Mines, 36-33
Sept. 7, 2019: at S.D. Mines, 37-33
Oct. 10, 2020: vs. Chadron St., 10-7 OT
Sept. 2, 2021: vs. William Jewell, 40-3
Sept. 1, 2022: at William Jewell, 37-14

QUARTERBACK PLAY
Three different Maverick quarterbacks combined to throw for 284 yards in the season opening win over William Jewell on the road. Starter Karst Hunter finished the game 12-of-22 for 181 yards, three touchdowns and an interception in a little over a half of action. The reigning RMAC Freshman Offensive Player of the Year found Keenan Brown on just his second pass of the season for a 38-yard touchdown pass. Backup Gavin Herberg came in and while his numbers dont jump off the screen at you, he was able to do some good things. Herberg hooked up with Zayden Davis on a 52-yard pass and was able to rush for 34 yards on just four carries. The sophomore actually saw action in all three phases of the offensive game as he threw a pass, rushed the ball and caught a pass as a receiver. Redshirt freshman Trevin Edwards saw primary action as the backup tight end but threw one pass for 40-yards in a trick play. He hooked up with Jacob Whitmer on the double-pass.

RIENKS TO THE RESCUE
Redshirt senior Dagan Rienks was named to the D2Football.com Elite 100 team just prior to the season opening game against William Jewell. The team represents the top 100 players in all of Division II football. Rienks was one of two players from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference joining Colorado School of Mines' Michael Zeman.

Rienks led the Mavericks in big plays (20+ yard play) in week one. He hauled in two catches, one for 20 yards and one for 22 yards in the win. He was targeted seven times in the game with five of those coming in the Red Zone. Dagan now has 52 catches for 684 yards and eight touchdowns in his career.

TOTING THE ROCK
Seven different Mavericks carried the ball in week one against William Jewell. Jullen 'Budda' Ison finished with a team-high 15 carries followed by Isaac Maestas' six carries. Coaches have raved about Ison's vision he has coming out of the back field even though he stands at just 5-8. Ison knifed his way through defenses and weaved around blocks for a team-high 62 yards in week one. The two quarterbacks who carried the ball combined for nine carries for 45 yards. The duo averaged 5.0 yards per carry with a long run of 15 yards by Gavin Herberg.

THE MAROON CURTAIN
The Maverick defense was stout in the win over William Jewell. They currently rank first in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and fourth nationally in total defense as they allowed just 158 total yards in their one game. Colorado Mesa allowed William Jewell to convert just one third down in the game as they finished 1-for-15. That mark ranks first in the RMAC and second nationally.

NO FLY ZONE
The Mavericks limited William Jewell to 97 yards passing on 13 completions in the opener. The mark still has the Mavericks in the top ten nationally after two weeks. All four of the starters in the secondary finished in the top five tacklers from the lone game of the season came from the Maverick secondary. Scrappy Norman led all tacklers with seven while Liban Shongolo, Pablo Araya and Bryce Stevenson all had five tackles.

SACK MASTERS
Another factor in the low passing yards for the Cardinals was the pass rush that accounted for seven sacks and three quarterback hurries in the game. Cam Nathan finished as the leader with a sack and a half while Hadyn Steffens, Mike Thompson Jr., Kaden Stewart and Levi Krebs all finished with one full sack.

LRD
Colorado Mesa has potentially one of the most veteran placekickers not only in the conference but in the country in Montrose product Lucas Ruiz Diaz. LRD was a perfect 3-for-3 on his field goal attempts with a long coming from 39 yards out and added five PATs. For his career, he has made 72.5 percent of his field goal attempts, making 37-of-51. He connected on a career-long 51 yarder during the 2019 season against Chadron State in Nebraska.

KNOW YOUR FOE
The Hardrockers are led by third-year head coach Charlie Flohr, a former longtime assistant coach at perennial NCAA power Northwest Missouri State. South Dakota Mines is coming off a 27-20 loss to Truman State in their week two matchup which was their home opener and second straight GLVC opponent.

Offensively, everything runs through Jayden Johannsen. The week one RMAC Offensive Player of the Week after throwing for 433 yards and four touchdowns against Missouri S&T. He was held in relative check in week two against Truman State as he had just 175 through the air and just five yards on the ground.

Casey Knutsen is the Hardrockers leading tackler in the early season as he has 17 total tackles in two games. Linebacker Kyante Christian is someone to look out for on the defense despite having just seven tackles on the season. The All-RMAC linebacker finished last season with 70 total tackles including two sacks against Colorado Mesa in the season finale.

Connor Taylor is 3-for-4 on his field goal attempts but has missed a PAT in each of his first two games.

TIDBITS

• Head coach Miles Kochevar made it three of the last four head coaches to win their first game manning the sidelines for the Mavericks.
• Colorado Mesa gained votes in the AFCA National Poll despite being on a bye during week two. The Mavericks now have four votes in the poll up from the preseason poll where they had one vote.
• The Mavericks are playing the first of three day games this weekend. Their next two home games will be 6:00pm starts.

ON THE HORIZON
Colorado Mesa will head back out on the road for their longest remaining roadtrip as they travel to Spearfish, S.D. for a matchup with Black Hills State on Saturday September 24. The Mavericks will return home for a matchup with rival Western Colorado on October 1.