Posted: Sep 11, 2023
The College of Wooster football team (1-1, 0-0 North Coast Athletic Conference) opens NCAC play in prime time, as the Fighting Scots head to Delaware, Ohio, for Saturday's 7 p.m. game at Ohio Wesleyan University (1-1, 0-0 NCAC). Wooster is coming off a 24-22 win over The University of Olivet, while Ohio Wesleyan lost 37-10 to then-ninth-ranked University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
On The Air: Wooster fans can watch this week's game at https://www.northcoastnetwork.com/ohiowesleyan.
All-Time Series: Ohio Wesleyan leads the all-time series 34-32. Ohio Wesleyan won the first all-time meeting 28-0 on October 5, 1901, in what marked Wooster's first game since 1890 due to a campus ban on intercollegiate athletics. Wooster's most recent win in the series was a 16-14 victory on November 2, 2019. Then-first-year Lake Barrett (Columbia, S.C./Hammond School) drilled a go-ahead 25-yard field goal with :42 remaining, and then-first-year Dorion Talley secured the victory by recovering a fumble after Barrett's squib kick deflected off the Battling Bishops' Braydon Chitty. Wooster has not won at Ohio Wesleyan since a 22-13 victory on September 25, 2010.
Last Meeting: Ohio Wesleyan beat Wooster 35-7 at John P. Papp Stadium on October 1, 2022. Alumnus wide receiver Troy Baughman threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to current junior Brazos Gadler (Houston, Texas/Cypress Creek) for Wooster's lone score of the game. Sacks were a big theme of the game, with the teams combining for eight. Q Renteria had two of Wooster's three, while alumnus Quincy Taylor had the third. The defenses set the offenses back 87 yards over the eight sacks.
Offense Notes: Sophomore Chanden Lee (Barberton, Ohio/Barberton) is 18th nationally with 602 passing yards and his six passing touchdowns are also in the top-20 nationally. Lee holds top-50 national rankings in passing yards per game (301.0, 25th), points responsible for (36, 35th), and passing efficiency points (163.2, 43rd). Gadler's 230 receiving yards are the 19th-most in Div. III. Junior Andrew Hammer (Uniontown, Ohio/Lake) has emerged as Wooster's most-targeted receiver. His 14 receptions through two games are just three shy of the 17 he had all of last year. Hammer now has five career receiving touchdowns with two of them coming this fall.
Defense Notes: Wooster's four fumble recoveries on the year are the sixth-most nationally and just two behind national leader Salisbury University. Senior Domenic DeMuth (Mayfield Village, Ohio/Mayfield), who leads the team with 15 tackles, now has a forced fumble and a fumble recovery to his 2023 stat line. Sophomore Brock Sivon (Perry, Ohio/Perry) has two interceptions on the year, with the second coming in the end zone against Olivet.
Special Teams Notes: Barrett made his 22nd career field goal during last Saturday's 24-22 win over Olivet to move within five of Richie McNally's program record 27. McNally made 27-of-41 field goals from 2001-04, and Andrew Milligan followed that with 24 makes from 2004-07. Wooster is averaging 24.3 yards per kickoff return, and the Scots already have two that have gone for over 50 yards on the year with first-year Kieran Klingsberg's (Fullerton, Calif./Troy) 88-yard touchdown return in the opener and Gadler's 57-yard runback against Olivet.
This and That: Wooster is second in the NCAC with 33.5 points per game. Wooster is in search of winning its conference opener for the fourth straight year. Wooster has outscored the opposition 115-28 over its last three NCAC openers and has scored 49 points in each of its last two conference lid-lifters. Offensive coordinator Zach Dennis, the longest tenured member of Wooster's coaching staff at 14 seasons, and Kyle Adams, in his 11th year as the Scots' running backs coach, were both All-NCAC football players at Ohio Wesleyan. Dennis was a three-year starter who rolled up 1,913 yards and 11 touchdowns for the Battling Bishops from 2004-07. Upon graduation, he was second in school history in receiving yards. Adams, a team captain in 2008 as a senior, was the team's leading rusher and took honorable mention on the all-conference team. Professionally, Adams has been named to Forbes' list of America's Top Next Generation Wealth Advisors three times.