In football, whether it is at the collegiate or professional level, bye weeks can go one of two ways for a team. They can either help the team for rest and recovery or a bye week can hurt a team’s momentum after a win.

That is what the Ashland University football team has to face this week as they are coming off a bye week to host Michigan Tech on Saturday (Oct. 20) at 1 p.m.

With four games left to play in the 2018 season, the Eagles (3-3, 3-1 GLIAC) are coming off of a bye week in which they were able to clean things up and get some needed rest to prepare for the Huskies (3-4, 1-4).

“It gives you a chance to fully do a self scout; to go back through the first six games and really figure out what your tendencies are and look at what you’re doing well,” AU head coach Lee Owens said. “You can sort out some fundamentals or you can try to tweak some things and add a few wrinkles you normally couldn’t do during a game week.”

The Eagles last game was on Oct. 6 at home in which they handed Saginaw Valley State their first loss on the season by a score of 21-17. With that win, Ashland has some momentum moving forward and morale has been lifted as they make a push in the final four games of the season.

After serving a five game suspension for violating athletic department policy, Eagles senior quarterback Billy Bahl will continue to watch from the sidelines as the coaching staff has decided to keep redshirt-freshman quarterback Austin Brenner under center for the remainder of the season.

“Austin will continue to be our starter and we just feel like he has played extremely well up to this point,” Owens said.

In five games, Brenner has a completion percentage of 59.0 with 964 yards passing, five touchdowns and only one interception. Brenner has also demonstrated his ability to scramble out of the pocket if need be as he has ran 38 times for 178 yards and one touchdown on the season.

The defensive side of the ball for the Eagles continues to be one of the best in the GLIAC as they rank third in the GLIAC in total yards allowed per game and second in rushing yards allowed.

The weak spot in the defense this year has been the defensive backs but they showed improvement in week six against Saginaw Valley State. The Eagles defense held quarterback Ryan Conklin to only 167 passing yards and only 19 of those yards went to his star receiver Chad Gailliard.

“One thing we did a whole lot better particularly at the end of the game against Saginaw is we played the ball in the air a lot better, we got a hand on a couple key balls,” Owens said.

The Huskies of Michigan Tech are coming into week eight having played the toughest part of their season, losing to the current top four teams in the GLIAC.

Offensively, they average 339.7 yards per game but give up 398.4 yards per game on the defensive side of the ball.

The Huskies are led by sophomore quarterback Will Ark who has thrown for 1,372 yards to go along with eight touchdowns in seven games. However, Ark only has a completion percentage of 50.0 and has thrown seven interceptions on the season.

Ark’s main target has been senior wide receiver Jacob Wenzlick who leads the GLIAC in receiving yards per game with 105. Wenzlick has totaled 42 catches for 735 yards and three touchdowns on the season.

“Their quarterback is dangerous, they are a physical team and they always play us well on defense,” Owens said. “They’re a confident bunch and they are coming down here expecting to win.”

The defense for the Huskies is led by junior linebacker Marvin Wright who leads the GLIAC in total tackles and tackles per game with 74 and 10.6, respectively. Wright also has four sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss on the season.

Wenzlick is also the Huskies kick and punt returner having 572 total yards on 32 total returns for the season, and is averaging 23.5 yards per kick return.

Michigan Tech’s freshman kicker Eric Zeboor is the reigning GLIAC Special Teams Player of the Week, his second honor of the season after scoring 11 of Tech’s 23 points in their 23-20 win against Wayne State this past week. Zeboor went 3 for 4 in field goal attempts with a career long of 43 yards and he kicked the game winner from 34 yards out with 5:49 left to play.

For the Eagles, it is all about keeping their momentum rolling after beating SVSU two weeks ago and having a bye week to come back rested and rejuvenated.

“We all believe starting with Tech, that we are good enough to beat every team left on the schedule, and that would be a heck of a year,” Owens said.

Kickoff between the Huskies and the Eagles is set for 1 p.m. on Saturday (Oct. 20) at Jack Miller Stadium in Ashland, Oh.

The game can be heard live on 88.9 WRDL or at wrdlfm.com or you can watch the Journalism and Digital Media broadcast replays on SportsTime Ohio on Oct. 20 (5 p.m), Oct. 21 (7 a.m.; 11 p.m.) and Oct. 24 (noon).