UND football insists it's not looking beyond Western Illinois
Oct. 2—GRAND FORKS — The UND football program is in the middle of a four-game stretch that has been circled on calendars by Fighting Hawks fans for some time.
The stretch is Boise State, South Dakota State, Western Illinois and North Dakota State.
From a fan buzz perspective, it's clear one of those four is not like the others.
Western Illinois comes to Grand Forks on Saturday for a 1 p.m. homecoming game at the Alerus Center riding a 17-game losing streak.
"I think the biggest thing is in this conference any team can beat any team on any given day," UND tight end Jaden Norby said. "We saw it happen when USD went to NDSU and beat them there. Western Illinois is coming to our place, and it's our homecoming game. Our mentality is we're going 1-0. We're going to learn from what happened last week and go into this game with a lot of confidence."
UND coach Bubba Schweigert tried to stomp out any ideas of a trap game while still in Brookings after South Dakota State's 42-21 win over the Hawks. He said in his postgame comments that UND needs to get back to work regardless of upcoming opponent.
"You do that within your building," Schwegiert said. "We know we have to prepare well against everyone and have to respect every opponent. It's really huge you put in the same amount of effort and focus for each opponent. On the outside, some games receive more attention than others. I know on the inside, our coaches and our leaders set the tone how we approach each and every week. We need the same focus and energy we've had the past few weeks."
Western Illinois last won a football game Oct. 30, 2021, a 38-31 win over Illinois State.
The Leathernecks last won a road game Sept. 25, 2021, in Youngstown, Ohio.
WIU is coming off a bye week and has losses this season to Southern Utah, Lindenwood, Illinois State and New Mexico State.
WIU quarterback Matt Morrissey, a transfer from Northern Iowa, has picked up decent yardage for the Leathernecks (WIU threw for 283 yards two weeks ago against SUU).
But the Leathernecks have struggled mightily in rushing offense. WIU is averaging fewer than 30 rushing yards per game, easily ranking No. 121 out of 121 FCS programs this season.
A big portion of that issue is the Leathernecks giving up a league-worst 18 sacks so far this year.
Regardless of homecoming opponent, UND knows it needs to fix some things coming off two convincing defeats to Boise State and South Dakota State.
"We've got work to do and that's the bottom line," Schweigert said. "We have to keep working to improve our football team. We knew going into these games, they were going to be challenging opponents. You want to come out with wins but you can still learn from this. We can't be disheartened. It's all perspective. We really have to keep things in perspective. We're 2-2 with a long season left. If we can stay in the moment, we can improve a lot. If we get distracted and don't stay in the moment, that wouldn't be healthy for us."
Who: No. 16 UND vs. Western Illinois.
Where: Alerus Center.
When: 1 p.m., Saturday.
Records: UND 2-2, WIU 0-4.
