Oilers hoping to exorcise some demons against Ohio Dominican

Off to a 3-0 start with little going wrong, the University of Findlay football team will have its first real test at 6 p.m. Saturday against Ohio Dominican. The Panthers, who also are off to a 3-0 start, have been able to knock off the Oilers more than most teams in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, beating them five straight times dating back to 2016. UF is well-aware of its recent record against Ohio Dominican and knows that to play against the daunting Panther defense ( which is allowing 4.0 points per game), it has to rely on more than just one part of its offense. "It's not a mystery that they've kind of had our number. They have a great d-line, great linebackers, and a great secondary that work well together," said Oiler coach Rob Keys. "We have to be very balanced—we gotta be able to run and pass the ball and they have to work off of each other." Aside from being a well-balanced attack, the Oilers want to strike early in the count. "You have to be good on first down because they're one of those teams that if you're not moving on first down and you're put in a second and long situation, they create takeaways," Keys said. "They got great pass rushers and they're gonna get to the quarterback. We gotta keep the chains moving and get those, you know 4, 5-yard plays on first down to make manageable situations on third down." On the other side of the ball, the Oiler defense has been just as impressive as ODU (only giving up 10.0 ppg) and will have to keep it going on its end as well. While Ohio Dominican only scores 19.3 points per game, it uses a methodical approach to hold onto the ball for about 33 minutes per game. To keep ODU's offense at bay, it starts with UF's gaudy defensive line, a unit that has helped create 10 sacks and 26 tackles for loss. "Our defensive line is very athletic and that's the thing that's allowed them to be successful," Keys said. "When you have Reggie Micheaux, Ervin Besingi, and Kyle Gibson as your defensive ends—all three guys have played a lot of football. Then the defensive tackles, they're not only big but they're pretty athletic and that's why our defense is been successful." Not only are they very athletic, but they're also a group that strives to be the best. "I don't have to tell them twice, I tell them once and it's done," defensive line coach Darius Davis said. "They compete with each other, man, they wanna be good, they wanna be great, and every day during the last semester they could have gotten complacent—but they didn't." It helps, though, when the d-line is not led by one player, but many players. Besingi, Micheaux, Gibson, and many other linemen all play their parts in getting to the backfield with no drop in talent. "We all have the same rate of execution as each other, so it's easy for us to be able to feed off of each other," said junior defensive end and recently named G-MAC Defensive Player of the Week Reggie Micheaux, who had 2.5 sacks and six tackles against Kentucky Wesleyan. "Let's say I take a double-team that leaves room for Ervin or (Logan) Speyer to be able to work. We all feed off each other." With this much depth and this much talent from the defensive line, you'd expect it to be this way for a long time—quite the opposite. A once timid group is now confident and ready to go come game-time. "When I got here, a lot of those guys were afraid of criticism and messing up or do something wrong," Davis said. "My biggest thing is playing fast and we can fix it on the go. We're gonna make mistakes sometimes and that's okay—you're gonna make mistakes. The main thing is to play fast and play for the next play." The Oilers and the Panthers know that the winner of Saturday's showdown is in a prime position to etch their names in the G-MAC record books, now it's time to prove it. "We're both 3-0 and we both beat teams that we expected. If you look at their schedule the first three games, no opponent on either side has won a game yet and I think our opponents are 0-7 and their opponents are 0-6," Keys said. "Now you have two 3-0 teams that are very anxious to play because when it comes to this conference, everybody's looking for a conference championship. This is a big step in that the team that wins this one is going to put themselves in the advantage moving forward."