Oilers unexpectedly open up home football slate tomorrow

In life, they always say to always expect the unexpected. That's certainly true for the University of Findlay football team. What was supposed to be a bye week for the Oilers will now be the home opener at 6 p.m. Saturday, because of COVID-19 outbreak somewhere in West Virginia. The University of North Carolina-Pembroke was originally supposed to play West Virginia Wesleyan Saturday, but had the contest canceled due to COVID protocols. With the Oilers having a bye week this week, the Braves football program gave them a call. Not exactly how bye weeks usually shape up. "It's funny because we planned to have our off week and planned accordingly to play Southwest Baptist a week from now. Then this morning, our AD [Brandi Laurita] came into my office and asked if I was interested in playing in a game this Saturday," Findlay head coach Rob Keys said Thursday evening. "Then she mentioned who the opponent was, then I met with the staff and some of our senior leaders had a team meeting and the consensus was that we were ready to play. The decision was easy to make, but the logistics — they need to travel, they need hotels, we need officials, and there was some scrambling going on." Just a day until kickoff now, the Oilers (0-1) are trying to get ready the best they can and even though they have the home-field advantage, don't expect that to matter that much. "Both teams have 48 hours to get ready for this, but they have to travel, and nobody has a true advantage over each other, it is what it is on that," Keys said. "But we still have to put together a game plan to win the game and in game, adjustments will be really important in this one. This is almost like playing another week one game because they don't know much about us and we don't know much about them. " UNC-Pembroke, whose season-opener last week was also canceled, returns several key pieces from a season ago, including Junior quarterback Josh Jones. In 2019, Jones threw for 2,210 yards passing and 16 touchdowns. In the spring, he threw for 1,194 yards and 12 touchdowns. The Braves top back, Joseph Early (164 yards, 1 TD), will be back as well. Keys expects a tough game from a quality opponent. "In the spring, they were 2-2 and they were 0-9 in the fall of 2019. But that's such a long time ago in 2019, it's irrelevant because they're a solid team who recently joined the Mountain East Conference and there's some familiarity there," Keys said. "They've played the University of Charleston, who we played in 2016 I think. They're a solid football team and they're a team to be reckoned with. We're going to have to make quite a few adjustments in the next 48 hours." After losing to Ferris State 54-14 just eight days ago, Keys sees this as a way to get over that loss even quicker. "The best way to get the bad taste of a loss out is by getting a win and we're going to prepare as much as we can in the next two days to hopefully get the first win of the 2021 season," Keys said. "The guys are excited because when you think about why you play football, you play to play in the games and the competitions. Anytime we can field a team and play against someone, we're going to do it."