“R-E-L-A-X.”
It’s unfortunate that the Mavericks lost to Western Colorado University (WCU) on Saturday, but it’s not the end of the world. It was a tough loss yeah, and I’m not going to sit here and act like it wasn’t a great game for the Mavericks either.
I’m saying that this is the sport of football and anybody can win on any given Saturday. The Mountaineers were just the better football team on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean that they actually are the better team.
Colorado Mesa University (CMU) is still a very good team, and they sustained some long drives against the Mountaineers. They just couldn’t finish some drives and we saw some uncharacteristic misses from redshirt junior kicker from Lucas Ruiz Diaz.
Ruiz Diaz is usually great for the Mavericks, so I don’t expect Diaz to continue missing field goals and extra points. He hasn’t had a typical season for the Mavericks, but he is a kicker that you want on your team so don’t get down on him because he will redeem himself.
Offensively, the connections have been there through the air, but they struggled to run the ball effectively against tough defenses. It makes sense that the run game would struggle against good run defenses, but it needed to be a bigger factor against WCU.
Against the top teams in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC), the Mavericks have rushed for 100 or more yards in one of their matchups against the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Colorado State University-Pueblo (CSUP) and WCU.
They ran the ball effectively against the Orediggers as they finished with 96 yards, and it resulted in a 26-21 win.
Against WCU the Mavericks rushed for 76 yards, but it felt like the Mountaineer’s completely shut it down. The longest rush in the game was 12 yards which is solid and what you need against good teams. I know that they are battling through some injuries in the running back room, but we also saw the least amount of running backs in the game against the Mountaineer’s.
The staple of the backfield has been the depth that has been there all season, but we didn’t see that against WCU. Freshman running back Avian Thomas and senior running back Morian Walker were the only backs that we saw in the game compared to the three and four backs that we saw against CSM and CSUP.
The depth has been the staple of this team, and we haven’t seen it shine through in the most recent games. The receiving depth has shown up against CSM and WCU, but the Mavericks can’t solely rely on their passing game to win games.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Karst Hunter has looked really good in his first season playing quarterback in college. So far, he has thrown for 1,941 yards this year and has a completion percentage of 62.25%. He also has 15 touchdowns, and Hunter has limited his turnovers only throwing three interceptions all year.
Hunter has looked tremendous and uses his legs masterfully, but he can’t be asked to win big games by himself. Against CSM and WCU, Hunter threw 32 and 31 passes in each respective game which isn’t a ton, but some of the top targets have shown some inconsistency in the past couple weeks.
The receiving core depth has stepped up in the last couple weeks with redshirt junior wide receiver KJ Sapp and redshirt sophomore Isaac Salazar being two guys that have seen some increased volume. The pair combined for 108 yards and eight receptions against the Mountaineers.
Overall, the Mavericks have one of the best teams that they have had in a while and they are only going to get better. They just need to get back to using some of their depth and they will be just fine. They are battling some injuries like most football teams do around this time of year, but if they can use their depth, they should win their final two games.
Each week they have shown progression from the last week, except last weeken against WCU. It isn’t going to become the norm though. The Mavericks are going to respond to this loss in their next game which is their final home game of the season.
The loss may push them out of the NCAA Playoffs this year, but never say never.
Even if they don’t make the playoffs, Grand Junction got a taste of how special this program can be under Head Coach Tremaine Jackson this year, and I’m excited to be able to witness it. The Mavericks are only going to get better under Jackson, and this year has been a terrific start to it.
