The Chadron State College football team will be striving to end its season on a winning note when it visits Black Hills State in Spearfish, S.D., on Saturday.  Kickoff is set for 1 o’clock.

The Eagles are 5-5 overall and 4-4 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.  One more win would look good on both season records.

Black Hills is 4-6 for the season and 2-6 in the RMAC.  The Yellow Jackets opened their schedule with non-conference wins over Dickinson State of North Dakota and William Jewell of Missouri, lost by just 19-16 to CSU-Pueblo, edged Adams State 51-48 and topped Fort Lewis 45-17 for a 4-1 record through Oct. 2.

Since then the Jackets have lost five straight conference games.  The closest of those games was a 13-10 loss to South Dakota Mines two weeks ago.

Last Saturday, Colorado Mesa overwhelmed Black Hills 52-9 while compiling 572 yards in total offense, compared to just 189 for the Jackets.   That happened even though Black Hills ran 73 plays from scrimmage, compared to 54 for Mesa.

The Eagles are coming off a 45-7 win over Western Oregon, despite having just 11 more total net yards (400 to 389) than the Wolves.  The difference was, Chadron State came up with three second-half takeaways and quickly turned them in to touchdowns.

Black Hill’s primary quarterback is Chance Eben, a 6-3, 210-pound sophomore.  He has completed 133 of 241 passes for 1,478 yards and 13 touchdowns while being intercepted nine times. He’s also carried 108 times for 310 yards and five TDs.

The leading rusher is Matt Collier, a 5-8, 180-pound junior with 140 carries for 888 yards and four TDs.

Chadron State quarterback Dalton Holst will be wrapping up his five-year career (counting last year’s schedule that was shortened to four games because of COVID) owning nearly all the Eagles’ career-passing and total offense records. There’s one exception.  Both Holst and Jonn McLain, who concluded his exceptional career in 2014, have thrown 94 touchdown passes.

This will be Holst’s final chance to claim sole ownership of that record.  He’s thrown 18 TD passes so far this fall while completing 167 of 297 passes for 2,184 yards.     

Chadron State Head Coach Jay Long and Black Hills’ Josh Breske are well acquainted. Beske was a four-year starter in the Yellow Jackets’ offensive line 2006 through 2009.  Long was the team’s offensive line coach the first three years and was the head coach when Breske was a senior and earned NAIA All-American honors.   Breske was the first All-American that Long coached,

After three years as the Jackets’ head mentor, Long moved back to his alma mater to become  Chadron State’s head coach in 2012.  That fall, Breske joined the Eagles’ coaching staff as a graduate assistant and earned his master’s degree from CSC in 2013.