After two straight weeks of playing on the road, the Rangers will back at home on September 25th at 6 p.m. to play East Central.
It will be family day weekend for Northwestern, and several activities have been planned for families that are making the trip up to Alva, with the game being the last thing to do on family day.
For the Rangers, they come into the game with a record of 0-3, but have shown improvement, especially on offense.
“We looked at what we were doing and decided to keep the offense simple,” said Matt Walter, the head coach of the Rangers.
Keeping it simple worked well for the Rangers in their game against Oklahoma Baptist last week, the Rangers put up 42 points against the Bison.
The Rangers will need to keep scoring if they want to win against East Central, as the Tigers have held their opponents to 17 points per game.
The Rangers will need to improve on defense as well, as they have given up an average of 47.6 points per game.
If the Rangers can clean up some simple mistakes, such as missed tackles and penalties, they have a decent chance to beat East Central. One position that needs to be touched on is the offensive line, as they have made improvements from the first game, but are still giving up three or four sacks each game.
The key to the game for Northwestern is to stay consistent. In the first half of all three games that the Rangers have played in, it was a close game at halftime, but the Rangers were not able to gain any momentum and take the lead. They improved this in their game against Oklahoma Baptist, as they were able to stay with the Bison instead of letting the game get away from them.
Looking at the records, Northwestern is 0-3, but has played a tougher schedule than East Central. The Rangers were defeated by Southern Arkansas, Henderson State, and Oklahoma Baptist.
East Central has a record of 2-1, with their wins being over Arkansas Tech and Southern Nazarene and their loss being to Harding. However, both of East Central’s wins are against teams that have not won a game yet this season.
The Rangers have maintained a 4-4 record against the Tigers since the Rangers joined the Great American Conference in 2012, but have won the last four meetings against East Central.
