With a win Saturday at Wittenberg, the ninth-ranked Wabash football team would reclaim the NCAC title for the first time in three years. With a loss, the Little Giants will witness number-14 Wittenberg celebrate a conference championship for the second consecutive season.
  
"You remember your senior year for the big games and this is one of the biggest games this year," Cody Buresh said. "This game is either going to make or break our senior year. If we play our game and come out on top, it will be a year to remember. If we lay an egg, it will also be something that we'll remember for the rest of our lives."

Wabash already knows what happens if it lays an egg. In last year's 35-17 home loss to Wittenberg, penalties and sloppy play buried the Little Giants early as they trailed 28-3 at halftime.

"We played our worst game defensively, our worst game offensively, and our worst game on special teams," Coach Erik Raeburn said. "I think we lost our composure and got caught up in the emotion of the game. Once that took hold, we didn't execute like we needed to. They played extremely well too — their All-American and All-Conference players played like it."

Buresh is the Little Giants' All-American. He is second on the team with eight sacks and he is one sack away from tying Darryl Kennon's Wabash career sacks record of 30. Although Buresh said he isn't thinking much about the record, a few sacks to disrupt the potent Tiger passing game will go a long way.

"Their offensive line is doing a really good job giving the quarterback time to go through his reads," Buresh said. "It's not surprising for me to see him go through three reads on one pass play and find the open receiver. I think it will be key for our defensive line to get pressure on him."

Tiger junior quarterback Zack Jenkins is second in the NCAC with 258-yards-per game and 18 touchdowns. He also leads the team with seven rushing touchdowns.

"Their quarterback has played very well and I think last week may have been his best game to date," Raeburn said about Wittenberg's 42-6 thrashing of Ohio Wesleyan. Jenkins and linebacker Dustin Holmes each won NCAC Player of the Week for their performances.

Jenkins' go-to targets Zach Culvahouse and Corey Stump are each averaging more than 80-yards-per game. Culvahouse has caught nine touchdown passes and Stump has caught two scores in five starts. After dealing with injuries early in the season, Stump caught 12 passes for 177 yards last weekend.

While the pass game has thrived, the Tiger running game has sputtered.  All-Conference running backs Sean Gary and Jimmy Dehnke are only averaging 3.4- and 4-yards-per carry, respectively. As a team, Wittenberg is eighth in the conference at 133.4 rushing yards a game. The team graduated two All-Conference linemen last spring.

Despite the change in personnel and poor numbers, Buresh won't underestimate the Tigers.

"Last year, Witt's running game wasn't doing that great either," he said. "Then they came out and ran over the defense pretty handily. Everyone says the Tigers lost a lot of older guys, but they're a good team and are going to bring in talent. They already have good backups so they'll be ready."

Wabash has good backups too, specifically quarterback Connor Rice. Rice has rotated series under center with the incumbent Michael Putko for the last seven games, and both have played well.

"I'll ask Putko what the opponents' tendencies are and try to get a feel for what he's seeing out there," Rice said. "We've built a really good relationship this year working together. When I'm out there, I let him know what I see too."

Putko leads the conference in touchdown passes and Rice tops it in pass efficiency. Each player has completed two-thirds of his passes, which is also a conference-best. Putko has taken two series, then Rice one. The offense has seamlessly rotated the signal callers.

"Everybody on offense understands it," Rice said. "They're use to it now and I don't think there's any concern about who is in at quarterback."

Rice won a state championship in high school, but has not played in any big-time college games. That will change Saturday as Raeburn said he will use both quarterbacks again. Rice will try to adjust to the game's speed with quick and correct decisions.

 "You have to slow it down as much as you can," Rice said. "You have to take the best option and just go with it. It doesn't matter if it's Wittenberg, DePauw, or Kenyon, our offense gives us the chance to succeed."

Although Rice may not have experience in important college games, his teammates do. Many of them played in the week-one 34-21 win over 21st-ranked Hamden-Sydney. Many starters also saw significant minutes in last year's game against Wittenberg.

"I thought we handled the emotion of that first game very well," Raeburn said. "We fell behind but didn't panic and showed some poise. You have to play with emotion, but you have to be under control. The old saying goes, 'You have to control your emotions, or they'll control you.' I think our guys need to spend some time thinking about that this week."

Buresh will try to walk the fine line between passionate and over-hyped.

"You always dislike Witt," Buresh said. "It's the most competitive team we have in our conference. We want to beat them."

Kickoff will be at 1 p.m. Saturday from Springfield, OH.