Nick Kendall
Staff Writer
nkendall1@murraystate.edu
The Racer football team is raring to go for the Family Weekend matchup against Morehead State University.
Head Coach Mitch Stewart is glad to be back in town and is hoping for a big crowd on gameday.
“This will be a completely different feel and we’ll feed off that,” Stewart said. “Especially when the crowd is into the situations of a game. It’s tremendously helpful for our guys, because they just make you feel good. To have that little bit of time shared with a lot of people that are after the same goal as you and they’re cheering you on sure does make that work kind of justifiable.”
After the shutout loss to the University of Toledo, redshirt freshman defensive back Jarad McCray lived, learned and forgot.
“We ended up falling short a lot of times in the red zone and that cost us,” McCray said. “We’re going to pick it up this week, so we don’t want to get caught up in too much about last week.”
The Eagles, who outscore their opponents by 48 points, are currently 3-1. They have proved to be a challenge for the Racers, who have been outscored 52 points by their opponents.
McCray doesn’t focus on the match-up; he plays with the same intensity for every game.
“We attack every team that we play against with the same intensity,” McCray said. “We prepare for practice the same way and we don’t really like to focus on who we’re ahead of. We just like to take one step at a time. So we’re really ready to move on to the next week.”
After playing against the likes of Toledo and Georgia, senior linebacker Kendrick Catis believes every football team is the same and doesn’t buy into the hype.
“After playing against both of them, I feel like the hype is, to me, too much,” Catis said. “They bleed the same way we bleed, eat the same way we eat. So I feel like they both was the same. Playing football is all the same for me. I feel like their energy just matched ours.”
Stewart is also ready to put the FBS games behind him and start conference play.
“We start our FCS season now,” Stewart said. “Everything that has happened three weeks prior, whether good or bad really doesn’t matter. To this point, we kind of start a new and we’re looking forward to it.”
Parents who signed up for Family Weekend should have received four tickets to attend the game.
Kickoff is Saturday, Sept. 21, at 6 p.m. at Roy Stewart Stadium.