The Wayne State Wildcats football team now have a record of 1-2 after their loss to Augustana on Saturday, Sept. 15.

The Wildcats had a total of 67 rushing yards and had three sacks. Aaron Bleil had 229 passing yards and was only sacked twice. Nate Rodgers had a total of 100 receiving yards and one touchdown.

“The game was not loss because Augustana played differently than expected. It was a good, close game between two evenly matched teams,” Dan McLaughlin said. “Augustana is an outstanding football team, that was evident in the way that they played. Our kids hung in there and competed and had a chance to win at the end. It just didn’t happen for us.”

One moment that sticks out in the game is “Augustana’s drive at the end of the first half to go up 14-7 took some air out of the defense. Combine that with giving up a TD on the first series of the 2nd half, and that is hard to come all the way back from. Those big runs by their offense, and the inability for our offense to sustain drives seemed to be the story of the night,” Scott McLaughlin defensive coordinator said.

The Wildcats had made some changes and line up switches throughout the game. “We struggled at times Saturday night because we had some new guys playing new positions,” McLaughlin said. We try to get the best 11 on the field as much as possible. The guys we had out there played their guts out. We just didn’t execute at high level at crucial points in the game.”

The Wildcats defense stopped the two attempts for fourth down conversions that Augustana tried.

“Our defense played great all game, and so our offense finally got into rhythm to start the 4th quarter, we moved the ball well and really gave ourselves a chance. When both sides of the ball are playing well in a rhythm, we are a very good team,” Rogers said.

The Wildcats were also able to complete one fourth down conversion.

S. McLaughlin thinks the teams needs to make smarter game decisions, proper pursuit angles, tackling techniques, and communication.

Rogers wants to make sure the team doesn’t start off slow and get behind, but he made sure that the team had no more turnovers and they need to keep that up.

The Wildcats are hoping to improve their record Thursday against Concordia-St. Paul.