After a tough conference opening win over Wayne State (1-1, 1-1), the Eagles football team turns their attention to their rivals, the Findlay Oilers, (1-1, 1-1).

 After a blowout win over Mercyhurst in week one, the Eagles met a much tougher match in their Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener against the Warriors of Wayne State. After trailing 12-6 at the half the Eagles used a monster third quarter to pull away from the Warriors en route to a 36-25 victory.

The Eagles offense once again exploded for 500 plus yards of offense for the second straight week. Quarterback Travis Tarnowski had a fantastic game as he threw for 311 yards and two touchdowns.

The real stars on the offense were out of the running back position, and both were not named Settlemire. Vance Settlemire, the starting tailback went down with an injury in the first half of the game and he did not return for the Eagles.

Keishaun Sims and Andrew Vaughn did not miss a beat and ran all over the Warriors defense. Both backs rushed for over 100 yards and Sims added 2 touchdowns.

“That’s a credit to the offensive line,” Head Coach Lee Owens said. “I pulled that group in front of the team on Monday and talked about them. At the very end, our offensive line really stepped up.”

 In two weeks the Eagles have rushed for an unprecedented 569 and five touchdowns. But they will most likely be without Settlemire and their starting fullback, Dan Medvetz, as Lee Owens does not expect either to play against Findlay.

“Vance has had two big, big games against Findlay,” Owens said, “to not have him is going to be a real big lost, you hope it’s not more than a week but this is going to be a week by week situation.”

Findlay comes into the weekend after a tough loss against GLIAC south opponent Ohio Domincan (1-1,1-1). 

The fast tempo, high powered Oiler offense had over 500 yards of total offense but it was the five interceptions that did them in and cost them the game. 

 Quarterback Rhys Gervais threw for 392 yards and three touchdowns and now has 666 yards passing through the first two weeks of the season.

The Oilers ran a total of 90 plays offensively while the Eagles ran a much more conservative 73 plays a week ago. The two teams play very different styles of football as the Oilers had two recievers who were both over 100 yards receiving, while the Eagles had two running backs who each ran for over 100 yards.

“I was concerned last week; the test was, can we hold up to a physical football team, we met that match, “ Owens said, “now we can see if we can keep up with the pace of a tempo team, that will be the test this week.“

The Eagles secondary will need to be ready to play on Saturday as the Oilers threw the football 59 times last week. Dale Irby had an interception and a fumble recovery against Wayne State, and he will likely see a lot more action this weekend. Safeties Terrell Hudson and Makai Veasley had a combined 18 tackles a week ago and will be called upon to have another big game this weekend.

The GLIAC South Rivals will duke it out at Jack Miller Stadium on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. as the Eagles will look to get one final tune-up before they take on sixth ranked Ferris State.