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WCU to open conference action Saturday at Citadel
Western Carolina will travel to Citadel for a 1 p.m. game Saturday in the Southern Conference football opener for both schools.
One week after snapping its 14-game road losing skid with a 23-21 win at Presbyterian, the Catamounts (2-2) will tackle another streak as they have dropped 15 straight league games and have been winless in conference play each of the past two seasons.
Citadel (2-1) has defeated Webber International (54-7) and Princeton (37-24) around a loss to Clemson (45-17).
The Bulldogs are led by Andre Roberts who ranks third in the league in receiving yards per game (101.7) and tops the conference in scoring with an average of 12 points. He also averages 26.2 yards per punt return and leads the conference with a 175.7 all-purpose yard per game average.
Defensively, linebacker Reggie Rice ranks fifth in tackles at 8.7 per game.
“They are an excellently coached football team,” WCU Coach Dennis Wagner said. “They can really run on defense. Offensively, they really make you prepare in that they do a lot of different things. We’ve already told our kids that they are going to be playing a very disciplined football team that runs to the football.”
As for the losing streak, Wagner said, “Obviously that is a big thing for us. We are in a stage with our program where we take it one game at a time. At Presbyterian, we talked about winning on the road and how that was going to be an important thing for us. Now we’ve got to go on the road and play a great Citadel team. We’ve got an opportunity to do a couple of things, again, in this game that helps our program move forward. Citadel is a great program and our guys have got to understand that each week we have got to start over and prepare.”
As for the win over Presbyterian, Wagner said, “Any win for us at this time is a big win. I told the team I didn’t care what the score was; we just wanted to walk away with a victory. We found a way to win late. As a coach, every time you win a game, you have to step back and compliment the team on the win but also warn them that when they come in to watch film that we have to make corrections and get better. As a coaching staff, we have to keep demanding that our guys do things right and understand that you play four quarters of football.”
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