The Little Giants find themselves halfway through the 2015 college football season unbeaten with a 5-0 record, including a perfect 4-0 mark in North Coast Athletic Conference games. Wabash puts that record on the line in Saturday's showdown with Kenyon.
 
Admission to Saturday's 1 p.m. kickoff is free of charge as the College and the football program thank the Montgomery County community for its continual support of students and events at Wabash. Fans will be treated to a matchup of two of the best running teams in the NCAC matching up against one another.
 
Kenyon comes to Crawfordsville with a deceptive 2-5 record — 2-4 versus NCAC foes. Two of the Lords' losses came in a four-point loss to Oberlin (28-24) and a 23-20 defeat in double overtime last Saturday at Ohio Wesleyan University. Kenyon had the ball knocked away trying to cross the goal line in the first overtime session to force a second OT. The Lords were unable to move the football in the next series   before OWU kicked the game-winning field goal.
 
Kenyon averages 189 yards on the ground a game, third best in the NCAC and better than more than half of the teams in Division III. Blake Calcei missed last week's game at OWU, but should be back in the lineup today against Wabash. The senior back ranks fourth in the NCAC and 103 in the nation in rushing yards with an average of 81.4 a game. Rob Meagher filled in for Calcei as the starter last week. A freshman, Meagher averages 4.4 yards a carry for the Lords, while Calcei checks in at 4.15 to create a powerful 1-2 punch.
 
Senior quarterback Jake Bates is no stranger to the running game either. He's rushed for 241 yards in 63 tries for an average of 3.8 yards a carry. Bates is a dual threat, throwing for 1,034 yards and nine TDS in the passing game. He's thrown just one interception this season. In fact, Kenyon has only turned the ball over five times through six games.
 
"Kenyon has run the ball well, and that helps open up the play-action passing game," Wabash head coach Erik Raeburn said. "They get in a lot of unbalanced formation. If we're not careful we could get misaligned and give up a big play in the run game."
 
The Lords will provide some challenges on defense, as well.
 
"Kenyon, more than any other team I've coached against, always has something new every week to try and make your offense uncomfortable and take away whatever they feel your best at," Raeburn added. "We'll have to make adjustments on the fly and go to something else and execute it well enough to try and get the win."
 
Free safety Curt Williams leads the defense with 43 tackles, one more than starting linebacker Saxon Justice. Outside linebacker Jacob LaPoint tops the defensive stats with eight tackles for losses, while Nick LaPoint leads the team with 4-1/2 sacks. The Lords have recorded 16 sacks this season while allowing just six overall on the offensive side of the football.
 
Wabash is coming off a 55-18 win at Oberlin that saw points come from all three phases of the game. The Little Giants picked up points when Connor Karns forced a fumble on a quarterback sack and returned the ball 11 yards for a touchdown. Drake Christen scored on a 35-yard catch and run from Connor Rice after finding the end zone on a 30-yard punt return.
 
Mason Zurek rambled for the longest play for Wabash this season on a 76-yard TD run in the third quarter after scoring on a five-yard run in the first period. Shamir Johnson added an eight-yard score to close out the game.
 
Rice had an off day, completing just nine passes although two went for scores. He had a pass deflect off Sammy Adams in the end zone that landed in the hands of Tom Garrity for the first score of the game to go with the scoring strike to Christen.
 
The Wabash defense allowed 18 points on a trick play, a long drive, and an 80-yards run by Justin Williams, but locked down for most of the game. The Little Giants held Oberlin to 281 yards of total offense, including 87 rushing yards overall.
 
"What impressed me most Saturday is the way we reacted when Oberlin scored last week. They mounted a big drive against us and hit a throwback pass from the wide receiver to the quarterback. That got their offense excited and gave them some momentum. Our guys, rather than being frustrated and down, came right back and stopped the two-point play. I thought that was a great sign for our defense. Obviously we don't want to give up those scoring drives or trick plays, but the fact our guys got refocused and stopped the two-point conversion was a good sign for our team."