8 things to know about UND football's next opponent Murray State

Nov. 1—GRAND FORKS — UND and Murray State will meet for the first time at 1 p.m. Saturday in Murray, Ky.

Here are eight things to know about the Racers, who are in their first season in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

Murray State quarterback D.J. Williams was the Ohio Valley Freshman of the Year in 2021.

In the 2022 season opener against Texas Tech, Williams threw for 207 yards before suffering an injury. Williams would miss the rest of the 2022 season.

Williams is 111-for-194 for 1,178 yards with eight touchdowns and six interceptions in 2023 — the program's first season in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

Williams has the fewest passing yards of the 11 MVFC quarterbacks who qualify for the official passing statistics.

Williams' best game was a 227-yard, three-touchdown performance on Oct. 21 in a tight loss at Missouri State.

Murray State's offense didn't score any points at North Dakota State last weekend but the kicking game was on point.

Freshman kicker James London, who handles Murray State's long field-goal attempts, drilled a 53-yard field goal with less than two minutes left in the first half to cut the Bison lead to 28-3.

The Miami native hit his second field goal of the season, which became the sixth-longest in program history.

London's kick is the longest this season in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The previous long belonged to Northern Iowa's Matthew Cook, who hit a 50-yard attempt at Indiana State.

Former UND starting safety Jayson Coley transferred to Murray State last offseason.

Coley has 20 tackles for the Racers, 1.0 tackles for loss, one quarterback hurry and two pass breakups.

In 2022, Coley started 11 games for UND. He was perhaps most memorable a year ago for his special teams prowess. He had four blocked punts in his career.

Coley was seventh on the Fighting Hawks in tackling last season with 36.

Cole Rusk is Murray State's leading receiver, and he's a big body to match in the passing game.

Rusk is a 6-foot-6, 252-pound tight end from Rock Island, Ill., who transferred to Murray State from Eastern Michigan.

Rusk has 26 catches for 317 yards and three touchdowns this year. He had a season-high seven catches for 88 yards and a touchdown in a big game against Missouri State on Oct. 21.

According to the school's official website, Murray State's athletic programs were originally known as the Thoroughbreds, a nod to Kentucky's love for thoroughbred horse racing.

The long nickname, though, didn't fit well with newspaper headline writers, so they used shortened versions like T-Breds, 'Breds, Race Horses and Racers instead.

Around the late 1950's, the shorter moniker of Racers became the generally accepted nickname for Murray State athletic teams.

Murray State's baseball team kept the Breds nickname until switching to Racers in 2014.

Murray State has struggled to stop the run in its first season in the MVFC. The Racers rank 107th nationally, giving up 197.8 rushing yards per game.

The Racers gave up five-straight 100-yard rushers at one point this season: Louisville's Jawhar Jordan (135 yards), Middle Tennessee's Maiden Credle (132 yards), Indiana State's Plez Lawrence (203 yards), South Dakota's Travis Theis (190 yards) and Southern Illinois' Justin Strong (128 yards).

That streak ended against Missouri State, where the Racers held the Bears to 68 total rushing yards.

Last week, the Racers held the Bison without a 100-yard rusher, although the balanced Bison did run for 175 yards as a team.

Murray State can pack fans in to Stewart Stadium.

In the Racers' homecoming game against Southern Illinois — a 27-6 loss to the Salukis — Murray State drew a crowd of 15,868.

The 15,868 was the fourth-largest in Stewart history just behind the all-time mark of 16,600 when the Racers hosted Eastern Kentucky in 1981.

The temperature in Murray, Ky., for Saturday is expected to be a high of 67 degrees.

A horse runs the track at Murray State's Stewart Stadium after Racer touchdowns.

The tradition started in 1976 with a horse named "Violet Cactus" and Carol Robertson was the first student jockey.

Violet Cactus was buried inside the northwest wall at Stewart Stadium upon her death in 1984.

Since 1985, each horse performing at Racer football has held the name of Racer 1. The 2023-24 school year is the fifth for the latest Racer 1, "Vegas."

Madison Kirby is back for a second year as student jockey.