Lakeland last time out: Lost to Illinois College 38-20 last Thursday
The Muskies were plagued by turnovers in their season opener at home under the lights on a Thursday. The visiting Blueboys scored their first 21 points on three long interception returns for touchdowns, erasing an early Lakeland 6-0 lead and putting the Muskies behind the 8-ball the rest of the night. The final score deceives what was a defensive battle, and Lakeland held the upper hand statistically, holding Illinois College to 192 yards of offense and less than 100 yards both rushing and passing. The turnovers plus big plays by the Blueboys were the deciding factor, with 104 of IC's yards coming on two plays, a 56-yard pass on 3rd-and-long in the third quarter and a 38-yard touchdown run by Trevor Smalls in the fourth.

Buena Vista last time out: Lost to Gustavus Adolphus 62-20 last week
The Beavers got off to a rough start against the Gusties, who scored 49 unanswered points in the first half, including a 28-point second quarter. Gustavus led 7-0 late in the first quarter before scoring touchdowns on its next six drives, all coming before halftime. Buena Vista scored all 20 of its points in the fourth quarter, including a pair of touchdown passes by Seth Gallardo, one each to Isaia Morones and Dolan Pospichal. Gustavus Adolphus outgained BVU 553-316 for the game, which was actually considerably less high-scoring than the teams' meeting a year earlier when the Gusties won by an 80-58 score in a game that tied the NCAA Division III record for most points between two teams in a game ending in regulation.

About the Beavers: Buena Vista is a member of the American Rivers Conference, a largely Iowa-dominated league formerly known as the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Beavers finished 5-5 overall last year and 4-4 to tie for fifth in the conference, and both records were the program's best under now 6th-year head coach Grant Mollring and the best since 2014. BVU has holes to fill this year including at quarterback after the transfer of Brandon Kyles, who threw for 2,253 yards and 19 touchdowns last year and also led the team with 560 rushing yards. Wide receiver Eric Pacheco also graduated after catching 77 passes for 1,172 yards and 12 touchdowns. This year's roster includes 54 freshmen and sophomores, and the offensive depth chart in particular includes eight freshmen on the two-deep.

Sheboygan native impresses in opener: The Muskies received much of their offense last week from freshman backup quarterback Robby Michael. The Sheboygan Lutheran High School graduate is the state of Wisconsin's all-time record holder for career touchdown passes for the Kohler-Sheboygan Lutheran-Sheboygan Christian co-op team, and he came on in the second half for Lakeland and scored his first collegiate touchdown rushing, on a 70-yard burst up the middle in the fourth quarter. Michael finished the game with 112 yards rushing on 11 carries for his first collegiate 100-yard rushing game.

New starters step up on D: The Lakeland defense has a number of new faces in the starting lineup this year, but many of those players have experience and showed some of that in the opener. Karlis Ozols posted a career-high nine tackles (four solo, five assisted) against Illinois College, including 2.5 tackles for loss, and also batted down two passes in his first start. Charles Kobe also made his first career start and posted a career-best eight tackles, including 3.5 TFL. Veterans Jake Leclaire, D'Jimon Stuckey and Leondre Townsend all also added sacks as the Muskies finished with 13 tackles for loss, nine pass breakups and three sacks, plus an interception by Jayden Tarver.

Making full use of four downs: Lakeland struggled on third down and the first three downs in general against Illinois College. The Muskies got to third down 25 times in the game and converted just six of those. Fourth down wasn't so bad, though. Lakeland went for it on fourth down ten times in the game and converted five, including making it all five times going on 4th-and-5 or less. The five fourth downs not converted required an average of 10.1 yards per try, and four of the five came in the second half.