The gist
- Final: Emporia State 21, #10 Pittsburg State 10, on the road in the MIAA opener.
- How they did it: 279 yards allowed. Three takeaways. Ten points surrendered to a top-ten team.
- The arc: Hornets are 2-0, both wins on the road, and now 23-12 all-time in MIAA openers.
- What's next: Michigan Tech on Sept. 12.
Into the jungle, out with a scalp
Emporia State walked into Pittsburg on Sept. 5, punched the #10 team in the country in the mouth, and walked out 21-10. The Hornets are 2-0. Both wins on the road. The MIAA opener — the sixth most-played rivalry in NCAA Division II — belongs to us.
The defense wrote the story. Pitt State managed 279 total yards. Three turnovers. Ten points. That is what you have to do to a ranked team in their building, and that is exactly what the Hornets did.
The arc, not just the box score
A week ago the Hornets were slugging with Minot State 36-30 and the honest complaint was 30 points on the scoreboard for the other guys. This week the defense showed up. The 40-points-in-two-games line on the season sheet undersells it — 30 of those came in game one, and only 10 came Saturday night against a top-ten offense. That is a real week-to-week jump.
Coming into the weekend, the buzz was all about Landon Boss, who opened the year with the MIAA Defensive Player of the Week award off the Minot State game. The chatter across the league all week was whether Pitt State had any answer for him. The answer, on the scoreboard, was 279 yards.
What people are saying
MIAA fans on d2football's message board spent the week jabbing at both sides. The pregame thread was equal parts “Pitt sucks” and “bees suck more,” with at least one poster warning that Boss would be a “rampaging beast” if the Gorillas didn't scheme him out. They didn't.
For the athletic-department writeup, Emporia's own Into the Jungle confirms the top-line numbers — 279 yards allowed, three takeaways forced, a 21-10 final in Pittsburg. If you called this one on our board, revisit the pregame message board and take a victory lap.
Our take
Here's our read. This defense is real. You do not hold a top-ten team to 279 yards and three takeaways in their own building by accident, and you do not follow up a 30-point week by holding the next opponent to 10 unless something clicked.
Two road games. Two wins. One ranked scalp. This is a football team.
Hot take: Boss is the best defender in the MIAA, and it isn't close. He was the conference's Defensive Player of the Week off the opener, Pitt State knew he was coming, and it didn't matter. If he keeps this pace, more postseason hardware is already in the mail.
Second take: the road-only start is quietly a gift. By the time the Hornets play at Welch, they'll have banked wins and figured out on someone else's field what this offense really is. That's a lot of runway before the home slate opens — where, as of this month, the east-side stands are closed to fans for the year.
Next up
Michigan Tech is on the schedule for Sept. 12. Whatever the venue, 2-0 with a top-ten win in the bag is a good problem to bring into the next one.
Two wins. One over a top-ten team. And if you'd rather back your reads than just shout them, that's literally the game.