Bulldog foot­ball limps into rivalry game against Grand Valley State

To return to win­ning form, Ferris State will work to limit mis­takes against num­ber one ranked Grand Valley State.

After a solid out­ing in week one, the Bulldogs have strug­gled in their last two games, includ­ing a 43–7 loss against Findlay last Saturday. The Bulldogs had four turnovers and for the sec­ond week in a row, had a punt blocked in the game. Ferris will look to elim­i­nate turnovers and mis­takes if it hopes to be com­pet­i­tive against the num­ber one team in the nation.

Head coach Jeff Pierce was stunned at the way the game started, with his team allow­ing 31 points in the first quarter.

“That game was just unbe­liev­able. We were down by a ton before we even got to start play­ing ball,” said Pierce.

The Bulldogs head into the Anchor-Bone Classic on a down note as they are 1–2 over­all and have given up 87 points in their past two con­tests; includ­ing two touch­downs of over 75 yards.

However, the defense has not been the only issue as the spe­cial teams have com­mit­ted costly mis­takes, which have hurt the Bulldogs early in games. The Bulldogs allowed only two blocked punts last sea­son and have had three blocked in the past two games alone.

Grand Valley State, on the other hand, has so far lived up to early sea­son expec­ta­tions as it has rolled to a 3–0 start and has out-scored its oppo­nents 101–40.

Something to watch this Saturday will be the turnover bat­tle. It is dif­fi­cult to win any game when you com­mit more turnovers than your oppo­nent. Through three games, Grand Valley has turned the ball over twice, while Ferris has had eight turnovers.

After Kyle Parrish strug­gled in the first two games of the sea­son, sopho­more quar­ter­back Tom Schneider started against Findlay. Schneider com­pleted nine of his 18 passes for 75 yards, one touch­down, and two inter­cep­tions. As of now, Pierce is unde­cided as to whom will start on Saturday.

“Right now, our char­ac­ter is being chal­lenged but we are going to fight through it,” said Pierce.

Grand Valley is favored to win on Saturday, but Ferris will look to pull an upset.