Football Takes on Black Hills State in South Dakota

The New Mexico Highlands football team (3-6, 3-4 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) looks to climb back to .500 in conference play Saturday (Nov. 8) when it takes on the Black Hill State Yellow Jackets (2-7, 1-6 RMAC). Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m.  

Highlands head coach Eric Young is currently in his fourth season and is 17-25 overall. He is 1-1 against Black Hills State.

The Yellow Jackets are coached by John Reiners, who is in his third season at the helm of Black Hills State. He is 9-22 as a college head coach and is 1-1 against the Cowboys. 

New Mexico Highlands and Black Hills State have split in the only two meetings between the schools, which have both come in the last two years. Ironically, each team has won on the road: Highlands won 46-31 in 2012 in Spearfish while Black Hills State won 48-45 last year in Las Vegas.   

Senior punter Patrick Carney took a small hit in his season average for punts last week against Western State for the Cowboys. Carney, who was named a Preseason All-American as a punter by both Lindy's and the Sporting News, is the leading returning punter from 2013 in all of NCAA Division II. 

In 2014 so far, Carney has placed 32.6 percent of his punts inside the 20 (14 of 43). Carney has punted for 50+ yards in 46 of 153 career punts (30.1 percent). Carney's average of 46.0 yards per punt currently leads NCAA Division II (and would be fifth in the NCAAs behind Division I punters). His gap against the next NCAA Division II punter is 0.5 yards.

Senior linebacker Jared Koster continues to show he is one of the best linebackers in the nation. The week following being named the RMAC Defensive Player of the Week and USACollegefootball.org Division II Defensive Player of the Week, Koster recorded 13 tackles and a forced fumble against #17 Colorado School of Mines. 

He has at least 13 total tackles and six solo tackles in every game this season, and leads the nation in both total tackles (15.4) and solo tackles (9.4) per game. He had 19 tackles (seven solo) against Chadron State this past week and earlier this season, he grabbed his third interception for his career and the first returned for a touchdown. Koster is already second all-time in the RMAC for single-season solo tackles (85) and is 17 tackles short of the record.

Arguably, there has not been a more potent combination in NCAA football this season.

Since the start of conference play, senior Lance Orender is 268-395 (67.8 percent) with 27 touchdowns. Just slightly less than half of those touchdowns (12) have been to senior Tyler Slavin. Since RMAC play began, Slavin has caught 89 passes for 1,081 yards, an average of 154.4 passing yards per game. For their efforts, Orender was named RMAC Offensive Player of the Week (Sept. 22) and the national offensive player of the week by Beyondsportsnetwork on both Sept. 22 and Sept. 29. He was named Quarterback of the week by USAcollegefootball.org on Sept. 22.

Slavin, meanwhile, was on a three-week streak of being named the Wide Receiver of the Week by Beyondsportsnetwork (Sept. 22, Sept. 29 and Oct. 6). He also won Wide Receiver of the Week by USACollegefootball.org Sept. 22 and Sept. 29.

Most people by this time are aware that the Cowboys enjoy running the spread offense. However, it might surprise you that sophomore running back Vincent Venegas is averaging 77.6 yards per game on the ground, including 197 yards in the win against Western State. He has rushed for more than 100 yards twice this year (with 95+ yards two other games) with three touchdowns.

But freshman Khadeem Campbell stepped in against Chadron State with 124 yards and two touchdowns. He was the first Highlands running back with multiple rushing touchdowns in a game in 2014. Orender also ran for his first rushing touchdown of the season.

Highlands will wrap up the 2014 season next Saturday (Nov. 15) when it makes the quick trip north on I-25 to take on nationally ranked CSU-Pueblo in Pueblo, Colorado at 2 p.m. The Cowboys will be looking to spoil the Thunderwolves plans to win their third-straight RMAC championship.