Anchor-Bone Trophy On The Line Saturday Night

Two teams off to disparate starts converge on Big Rapids Saturday Night with West Michigan college football bragging rights on the line.

Perennial Division II football power Grand Valley State is off to a rough 0-2 start this season, and probably has to win the rest of their games this season to get back into the NCAA Playoffs. Meanwhile, Coach Tony Annese has been building a tradition up in Big Rapids, and his Ferris State Bulldogs have taken the last two games in the series.

Things are going to be very interesting in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference when the dust clears at Top Taggart Field in Big Rapids Saturday night.

"We have to try and put these two losses behind us," Grand Valley running back Michael Ratay told WZZM 13 Sports. "We had a good week of practice and we just have to focus on Ferris. We all know the importance of this game and we just have to do what we can do to get the win."

Ferris State's explosive offense has been a problem for the GVSU Lakers, especially last year, when they gave up 54 points against the Bulldogs. Compounding the problem is the Lakers troubling trend of fading late in games this season. In both losses they held the lead late, only to give up big plays.

“It’s not good enough,” GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell told the Grand Valley Lanthorn this week. “We’ve had back-to-back weeks where we’ve played well but we faded late. We need to be more consistent.

"We do have to do a better job as a coaching staff of getting our players to be more consistent snap in and snap out with the understanding that 56 out of 59 snaps is not good enough.”

In the meantime, a weird development had the GLIAC apologizing to the Lakers this week for two bad calls the officiating crew blew in last Saturday's 28-24 loss to Ohio Dominican.

“We apologize to you, to Coach (Matt) Mitchell and the GVSU players for these errors,” Robinson wrote in a letter to Tim Selgo, Grand Valley’s athletic director. “… Bringing these plays to our attention will help us improve our officiating.”

Both calls played a critical factor in that loss.