Aaron VehlingA person taking a quick glance at the season stats wouldn’t see much in UW-Whitewater’s numbers to indicate the Warhawks are at the top of the WIAC.
But the most important stat of all shows Whitewater without a loss in conference play.
With some of the WIAC favorites already saddled with two losses, Saturday’s football game between UW-Eau Claire and Whitewater has become an unexpected battle for first place in the conference.
Coming off three straight 5-5 seasons, the Warhawks (5-1, 3-0 WIAC) are the only undefeated team left in the conference, while the Blugolds (3-3, 2-1) are tied with UW-La Crosse for second.
Offensive coordinator Glenn Caruso agreed that on paper Whitewater doesn’t look like a first-place team. However, he said the numbers don’t begin to tell the story.
“They play so well together,” he said. “They play full of confidence and emotion, and they’re always flying around making things happen.”
While most of the raw numbers don’t explain Whitewater’s quick start, one number does stand out above the rest: The Warhawks’ league-best turnover margin.
Whitewater has 13 more takeaways than giveaways this year, a margin better than the other seven WIAC schools combined.
In last week’s 28-23 win over UW-Stout, the Blue Devils outgained Whitewater by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, but timely turnovers helped the Warhawks get two touchdown drives shorter than 10 yards.
In the previous game, against UW-River Falls, Whitewater again won despite being outgained, thanks in part to a blocked punt returned for a touchdown.
Caruso said avoiding turnovers is a matter of concentration.
“We need to throw the ball with accuracy and confidence,” he said. “We have to make sure we play within ourselves.”
Aside from forcing turnovers, the Warhawks also don’t commit many of their own, having given the ball up only eight times this year.
“They play an offense that lends itself more to team tackling,” defensive coordinator Mark Sipple said about Whitewater. “We want to work on getting the guy wrapped up, then ripping the ball out.”
If worrying about protecting the ball isn’t enough, Eau Claire also has to focus on the performance of its defense. The Blugolds rank second to last in virtually all conference defensive numbers.
Sipple said the biggest problem for Eau Claire’s defense has been its consistency.
“We have played as well as anybody in the league,” he said, “and we’ve played as poorly as anybody in the league.”
Caruso said consistency is a goal of the offense, as well. He said Eau Claire is looking for better balance between the running and passing games.
“We’ve had more success passing the ball, but that doesn’t mean we want to throw the ball all over the field,” he said. “We have to run the ball enough to keep their defense honest.”
Caruso said the Blugolds have struggled a little bit running the ball recently, but the running game should be helped by the return of sophomore running back Joe Gast, who missed the last two games with a lower leg injury. Gast leads the Blugolds with an average of more than six yards a carry.
The Blugolds have won five straight games against the Warhawks, but going by statistics, that could actually be a bad thing for their prospects Saturday.
In the 80-year history of the series between Eau Claire and Whitewater, no team has strung together a six-game win streak against the other.
