The Wabash football team packs its bags for the first time in 2017, traveling to Wooster, Ohio for Saturday's North Coast Athletic Conference game against the College of Wooster Fighting Scots.
 
The Scots opened the season 3-0 with victories over Bluffton (45-21), Allegheny (49-35), and Ohio Wesleyan (38-20) prior to a 51-24 loss at DePauw last Saturday. Wooster took the field with heavy hearts, mourning the death of senior offensive lineman Clayton Geib, a chemistry major and three-year starter for the Scots' football team.
 
"I can't even imagine what the players from Wooster and the coaches, the administration, and Clayton Geib's family have been going through the past two weeks," Wabash head football coach Don Morel said. "They are in our thoughts and prayers. I give them a lot of credit for getting out on the field last week at DePauw."
 
The Wabash team will honor Geib by wearing a special helmet sticker with his initials Saturday when the Little Giants take the field.
 
Once action commences, the Little Giants will have their hands full. Wooster enters the contest as one of the top offense in NCAC, led by senior quarterback Gary Muntean. An honorable mention all-conference selection in 2016, Muntean has turned in impressive numbers through the first four games for Wooster. He leads the NCAC in passing, averaging 327 yards a game, completing 97-of-138 attempts for 1,308 yards and 13 touchdowns while throwing only one interception. Last season Muntean threw for nearly 3,000 yards with 226 coming against Wabash in a 34-24 win by the Little Giants in Crawfordsville.
 
Muntean is also a threat in the running game, rushing for 179 yards (44.8 ypg) and four touchdowns. Antonio Bailey, a junior running back, leads the Scots and ranks sixth in the NCAC in rushing with an average of 68.2 yards per game. Bailey tops the receiving charts for Wooster with 21 catches for 133 yards and one touchdown. Sophomore Nick Strausbaugh has hauled in five touchdown receptions as part of his 20 catches this season for 488 yards. Connor Allan and Jacob Lewis each have 16 and 13 receptions, respectively. Nine different Wooster players have receptions thus far this year.
 
"Their quarterback is an excellent player," Morel said. "He's certainly one of the top quarterbacks in the league. They're a run-pass option team. We've got to be ready to handle that. It seems like every week we play a team with a slippery quarterback. Wooster is no exception."
 
A talented group of sophomores have helped Wooster jump out to its 3-1 start.

"Wooster is very much improved defensively from a year ago," Morel said. "They've had some injuries on defense but have battled through those. I think we just need to focus on being Wabash and we'll be fine."

Wabash will look to get out to a faster start than last week versus Hiram. The Little Giants fell behind 14-0 before Weston Murphy connected with Matt Penola for a 53-yard touchdown pass. A blocked punt by Artie Equihua in the end zone generated a safety to cut Hiram's lead to 14-9 in the first quarter. The Little Giants limited Hiram to 187 yards over the next three periods to claim a 25-21 victory. Byshup Rhodes received the NCAC Defensive Player of the Week Award after making a personal-best eight tackles against the Terriers with seven solo stops, three tackles for losses totaling 20 yards, two sacks for 13 yards, and one forced fumble.
 
"We made some critical mistakes against Hiram last Saturday," Morel said. "We just stunk to be honest. I'm not taking anything away from Hiram. They were athletic and a good matchup for our style of football. We just don't fumble the ball. We don't fumble the opening kickoff of the second half. We don't allow a team to score on the opening drive. We don't get a punt blocked that led to a touchdown. These are just critical mistakes. We are not good enough to play like that. I think our kids understand it now."
 
Ike James capped an eight-play, 53-yard drive with a one-yard TD run to give the Little Giants the lead for good over Hiram. He and the rest of the Wabash offense enter Saturday's game against Wooster ranked third in the NCAC in scoring offense at 40.7 points per game and lead the league in rushing offense by averaging 292 yards a contest. James is the leading rusher in the NCAC with a 139.7 yards-per-game average.
 
The Little Giants (3-0, 2-0 NCAC) are the top team in the NCAC in defense, holding opposing teams to 257.7 yards per game.
 
Kickoff at John P. Papp Stadium is at 1 p.m. Live video and statistics are available at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/wooster/. Wabash will provide audio commentary of the game on WNDY 91.3 FM and online at https://www.wabash.edu/live beginning at 12:40 p.m. with the pregame show.