A pair of football teams looking to make a move get together on Saturday night in St. Charles, as Lindenwood and William Jewell square off in Heart of America Athletic Conference action.

For the Lions, the last two weeks have been a stark contrast to the season’s first two—playing with emotion and heart, LU has rebounded from losing the first two games of the year to win in impressive fashion over 13th-ranked Benedictine, and then 8th-ranked Graceland, the last two Saturdays. Now back to .500 overall, and more importantly, 2-1 in the HAAC, the Lions will be looking to keep that train rolling downhill and take control of the Heart title race as the season moves through October.

William Jewell and new head coach Fran Schwenk have seen the ups and downs a football season can hold, as well—the Cardinals thumped Baker and Avila, but lost a close one to MidAmerica Nazarene and then got hammered by Culver-Stockton last week. With two league losses on the resume, Jewell can ill afford another one on Saturday if they have designs on being in the race for the crown when the weather turns.

One thing the Cardinals will surely have to do in order to pull off the huge road win tonight is contain LU senior tailback De De Dorsey. The amazing Oklahoma native and his playmates on the Lion offensive line inflicted a serious mouth wound on a good Graceland defense last week, with Dorsey pounding for 271 yards on 43 grown-man carries, including a school-record six TD’s.

The NAIA National Offensive Player of the Week award, which went to Dorsey this week, should also find some time under the arm of bruising junior fullback Chris Simmons, who basically blocked the Yellowjackets into submission last Saturday (and was awarded the game ball by the coaching staff). The growth of Simmons and the offensive line—the Lions posted 470 yards in total offense last week, after putting 433 yards on Benedictine the week before—has been the biggest difference between Ugly LU and Pretty LU this season.

William Jewell has some weapons to use on defense in the effort to slow down Dorsey. Inside linebackers Anthony Simone and Chris Glenn can play, and safety Loren Henry can come up from the hash and deliver a blow.

The Cardinals are similar to LU on offense in that they want to run the football. They have some nice backs, particularly sophomore Leon Wiggins, who did not play last week against Culver. Junior DeAndre Estes filled in well, but the Cardinals were not the same team on the ground without Wiggins.

If Wiggins cannot go on Saturday, LU will have to make sure Estes and senior QB Daniel Forrest don’t get hot. Last week’s first-half effort against a high-powered Graceland offense was the LU defensive unit’s best 30 minutes of the season.

The hope in the Lion camp is that with four games now under their belt, the wrecking crew of last season will reappear for 60 minutes at a time—beginning at about 6:01 on Saturday. If that happens, the race for the crown could get very interesting.

What is crystal clear after four games, is that Lindenwood controls its own destiny in regard to defending the Heart crown. With wins over two highly-regarded, nationally-ranked teams over the last two weeks to build on, the task is now to keep the momentum going.