University of Northern Colorado Athletics
Dennis breaks rushing record in leading football to victory
10/20/2012 12:00:00 AM | Football
RELATED CLICKS:
Post-Game Notes
By HEATHER KENNEDY
UNCBears.com
GREELEY -- Coach Earnest Collins Jr. has been talking to his team for weeks about getting everything right within yourself and it will show on the field and that's exactly what happened Saturday at Nottingham Field as the Northern Colorado football team won its first Big Sky Conference game of the season, defeating Idaho State 52-14.
The Bears are now 2-5 overall and 1-3 in Big Sky play after dominating all three aspects of the game.
"That was fun," Coach Collins said. "It was awesome to get the win today. We've been talking to our guys all week about we still have a goal intact and that goal is to have a winning season but this has to be the first of five straight. To have the guys believe and understand that, this is a good jump start to it."
On offense, junior Tromaine Dennis broke the school's Division I rushing record, carrying the ball 27 times for 178 yards and two touchdowns. He breaks the previous mark of 167 yards by Andre Harris at Portland State on Nov. 13, 2010. Dennis becomes just the sixth player since the team joined the Big Sky in 2006 to have over 100 rushing yards in a game.
"With the run game, we looked at (the film on Idaho State) and we thought we could run the ball," Collins said. "We've been trying to run the ball all this year and we looked and thought we could. Our o-line looked at the film and said 'Coach, we can run the ball.' We came out and put up 240-something yards rushing and it was awesome to see."
The Bears amassed 246 total yards on the ground, the most since the 2010 season finale when the team rushed for 249 at Portland State.
Junior quarterback Seth Lobato also had a stellar game, completing 16-of-22 passes for 243 yards and five touchdowns. He also did not throw an interception and was not sacked. The five passing touchdowns are the most since Corte McGuffey threw for six against Western State on Sept. 12, 1998.
"This is what we've been expecting out of (Lobato) all along," Collins said. "The kid is very heady. If he's got time, he's comfortable and he has some time back there he can do some special things with the football."
Lobato connected with senior Dominic Gunn seven times for 75 yards and two touchdowns, while junior Jace Davis had four receptions for 58 yards and one touchdown. Both now have 10 career receiving touchdowns, which ties for 13th all-time in school history. Idaho State kicked the ball completely away from Gunn on special teams, just the second time this year he hasn't reached 100 all-purpose yards.
"Dom's one of those guys – we didn't get out of him what we thought last year and he knew that," Collins said. "It wasn't just receiving today; Dom was blocking his butt off out there too. Even after that penalty I pulled him aside and said 'I love the tenacity you're playing with in the blocking game.' He's really stepping up and doing some things he needs to do."
Senior quarterback Matt Baca also completed 4-of-6 passes in the game for 48 yards, getting his first action behind center since Sacramento State on Sept. 15.
On defense, sophomore corner Courtney Hall led the team with eight tackles, all solo, one forced fumble and one pass break-up, while senior defensive tackle Aisea Vave had one of the best games of his career with four solo stops which included two tackles for loss and a 10-yard quarterback sack.
Redshirt freshman Chris Urbaniak also put together a solid day with a quarterback sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
"I was proud of our kids," Collins continued. "When you play a team like that they can put some points on the board quick, fast and in a hurry and we did a good job against that quarterback (Kevin Yost). I've been coaching for 18 years and I've never seen a quarterback as tough as that kid is. That kid is accurate and he's tough and last year we had to hit him like 20 times and he just kept coming back."
Today, the defense sacked Yost three times and both James Davis and Timi Niweigha had the first interceptions of their careers against him.
For the third time this season, junior kicker Dave Eden scored 10 points in a game, making all seven of his point-after-attempts and nailing a 45-yard field goal.
"I was pleased with the guys performance on offense, on defense and on special teams too," Collins said. "We've got to keep this going and go to work tomorrow on NAU."
Northern Colorado hosts 16th-ranked Northern Arizona next Saturday at Nottingham Field at 1:35 pm. The Lumberjacks hosted UC Davis in Flagstaff beginning at 4 pm.
"(This win is) special in the sense that we're working on some things internally," Collins said. "I keep telling the kids that if we take care of us on the inside, inside our program and people will be able to see what's going on on the outside, so it's special in the sense that we got our kids to see some things that we need to change and to come out this week and perform the way we did just strengthens that part of what we're trying to do."
