No. 4 Montana State is coming off of its first win on the season, as it beat San Diego 41-7 last week.
The Bobcats will face a familiar opponent this Saturday when they host Mercyhurst for the second year in a row.
The Lakers, from Erie, Pa., and in their second year at the FCS level, currently sit at 1-2. Their offense, with quarterback Adam Urena at the helm, has the best passing offense in the Northeast Conference with 323.3 yards per game through the air.
"They’ve thrown the ball for a pretty good clip so far," Montana State coach Brent Vigen said. "I think their skill and who they’re throwing the ball to are good players. The quarterback ... crafty, athletic, tough player, and he’s the same guy we saw last year.
"In the two losses they haven’t run it as well as I’m sure they would’ve wanted because it appears to me they want to run the ball. But they’ve been able to find a way to move the ball in all three games."
MSU quarterback Justin Lamson leads the country in completion percentage. He threw for 293 yards and three touchdowns in the 41-7 win over San Diego last week. Lamson also ran one in himself.
"It was cool," Lamson said about last Saturday. "It’s always cool when you’re at a home game, and you’re scoring touchdowns, just the crowd and everything. But, I think this week especially, everybody did their job, and there was a lot of guys open and a lot of guys were blocked, so I mean, it made my job pretty easy."
The defense allowed just over 200 yards of offense to San Diego and have been lights out on third downs. They want to keep that standard high as the season progresses.
"Looking at the last two games, we’ve been really good on third down," Vigen said. "We’ve hardly let up any chances in the red zone in the regulation of the two games. I think we’ve been fundamentally sound. We’ve tackled well."
The kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Bobcat Stadium, and the game will air and on your local MTN and Scripps Sports station.
