NAIA school William Penn comes to town

William Penn, a small NAIA school from Southeastern Iowa, finds itself in the same situation SIU faced last week – a team from a lower Division coming to play a powerhouse hoping to test its skills against a team that is better, faster and more powerful.

But unlike SIU last week, William Penn is not really hoping for a win. Although the Salukis were able to go up one level last Saturday, Statesmen head coach Todd Hafner is not expecting a victory Saturday.

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“I’m not quite sure we’re at that level yet, where we could go and compete with a Division II or Division I-AA program,” Hafner said. “I think we just use it as a chance to go play on a little bit bigger stage and go play in front of a little bit more people than we’re used to.”

Hafner could just be showing humility.

In the two weeks of the young football season, William Penn has proved itself worthy to compete with SIU if the complicated and somewhat ridiculous “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” is applied.

According to this theory, William Penn could give SIU a game:William Penn (1-2) lost 16-6 at Drake last week, and Drake nearly defeated Southwest Missouri State two weeks ago. A team who can hang with Drake can then theoretically hang with SMS, and SMS lost by only 14 points to SIU last year.

Therefore, vicariously, William Penn is as good as SMS and can expect to lose by only a few touchdowns.

It may not play out that way, and as usual, head coach Jerry Kill is not thinking of those types of scenarios. As with every game, he’s more worried about his team making mistakes than what the opponent is going to do.

Kill called Tuesday the first real practice after the loss to Northern Illinois, his best of the season and continues to preach fundamentals to his players – something that earned him compliments from some NFL scouts at McAndrew who complained of million-dollar athletes not even knowing how to block properly.

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But Kill said there is still work to be done. He is particularly concerned with the offensive line keeping its hands in and reducing the number of holding penalties, something that hurt them against Northern Illinois.

The theme of this entire week seems to be fundamentals, and the players are viewing the William Penn game as a chance to improve in the areas they lack.

Despite William Penn’s status as an NAIA team, a Division with a talent level between Division II and Division III, SIU is not showing a lackadaisical attitude toward Saturday’s game or the preparation for it.

The Salukis say they need to get better this week, and continue building on that. If they do not improve this week, it could make the Gateway season much more difficult.

“If we slack, then not only are we hurting our chances to beat William Penn, we’re hurting our chances to beat the teams down the road,” said SIU quarterback Joel Sambursky.

SIU knows if it does the basics, it can win, which looks like a certainty on paper. The Salukis are taller and heavier at just about every position, a difference that will be dramatic in the trenches.

SIU’s defensive line starters average 281 pounds, while those of William Penn average 246 pounds. And when the Statesmen line up on defense, their line will give up an average of 56 pounds.

Hafner knows the odds, and just hopes his team can come out of Saturday having learned something.

“Our kids are smart enough to know that the challenge in front of them is a very big challenge, but at the same time they look forward to it and these kids just love playing football,” Hafner said. “This is an opportunity for them to go play against some great competition and see where they stack up.”