Halfway through the Frontier Conference season, by the numbers.

It is the midpoint of the Frontier conference season. 5 games down, with 5 to go over the next 6 weeks. With a conference-wide bye-week on Oct. 15^th. Let’s start by looking at the current Frontier Conference standings. Shown with this week’s national ranking, as well as points scored, and points allowed.

Current Frontier standings:                      points for:      points against      

#9   College of Idaho      5-0                            166                      65
#17 Rocky Mountain      4-1                            170                      77
#19 Montana Tech          4-1                           190                      65
RV –Carroll College       3-2                            97                        104
UM Western                   2-3                           178                      124
Southern Oregon           2-3                            146                      115
MSU Northern               0-5                             15                        251
Eastern Oregon            0-5                              61                        227

I feel we have had a few surprises in the early season, both the good variety and the not-so-good variety. The big “good” for me has been the current top 3 schools have all had to play their backup quarterbacks, and all have played fantastically. Historically, you don’t survive in this conference if you don’t have a solid backup play-caller. On the not-so-good side, I just look at Eastern. That’s a program that is well coached, they usually have next level talent scattered through their roster, and as of now they just can’t seem to put it together.

For a reminder, here is the Preseason Coaches’ Poll. It’s always fun to compare the preseason poll, to midseason, and final polls. Do I think the current standings will hold? No. I still think we will have upsets; I think there will be some big games down to the wire, and I think (unfortunately) our conference will beat each other up, and out of the top 25.

Preseason coaches’ poll

#17 Montana Western (4)                     43 points
RV - Carroll College (3)                         37 points
#19 Rocky Mountain College                37 points
RV-  College of Idaho (1)                      33 points
Montana Tech                                      30 points
Eastern Oregon                                   19 points
Southern Oregon                                 17 points
MSU-Northern                                       8 points

Here are some of the current stat leaders in the Frontier Conference

Starting with passing numbers, I mentioned earlier the importance of depth at quarterback, 2 guys who started the season as the #2 on their roster find their way onto the passing yards per game list.

Passing Yards Per Game

George Tribble- Rocky    36/51    71%       483 yards           242 ypg    6 TD  1 Int

Jet Campbell -Tech          50/87    58%     674yards              225ypg   4TD  2 Int

Blake Asciutto SOU-        87/161  54%      1062 yards         212 ypg    10 TD  3 Int

Nathan Dick- Rocky         53/97    55%       591 yards           197 ypg    3 TD   3 Int

Andy Peters-COI              57/95    60%       777 yards           194 ypg    6 TD 3 Int

Jon Jund -Western          95/167    57%    1138 yards         190 ypg     9TD  6 Int

Blake Thelen - Tech       30/49     61%     503 yards           168 ypg   6Td 0 Int

Jack Prka -Carroll            69/127     54%    751 yards           150 ypg     4 TD 5 Int

I will always think of the Frontier as 'running back central', stacked with guys that just dominated. Running backs like Rinker, Hansen, McKinley, Calzaretta, Grosulak and Saracini, guys that averaged 130+ yards a game, so it strikes me as odd to see 1 guy averaging over 100 ypg. That could easily change over the rest of the season as the weather gets worse and worse. But still feels like an oddity.

Rushing Yards per game

Zaire Wilcox – Rocky                    63c – 326 yards               109ypg  2 TD

Allamar Alexander COI                 87c -490 yards                 98ypg    4 Td

Hunter Gilbert   COI                      79c- 463 yards                93ypg    6 TD

Blake Counts  Tech                      77c – 402 yards               81 ypg   3 TD

Reese Neville Western                 79c – 437 yards               73 ypg   4 TD

Matthew Burgess  Carroll            46c – 251 yards               63 ypg   2 TD

Receiving yards per game

Trevor Hoffman -Tech                  31 rec. 482 yards           97ypg    2TD

Malachi Spurrier  EOU                  22 rec.  375 yards           63ypg    2TD

Trae Henry- Rocky                         17 rec   305 yards           61ypg    3TD

Jake Nadley- COI                           16 rec. 241 yards           60ypg    1TD

Kyle Torgerson- Tech                    20 rec. 296 yards           59ypg    1TD

Christian Graney – SOU               24 rec. 277 yards           55ypg    2TD

Tony Collins- Carroll                      18 rec.  273 yards           54ypg    5TD

We have several big games on the horizon, games that could shape the conference standings as well as the national top 25. This weekend that game is in Caldwell, ID as the Orediggers are on the road to take on the Yotes.