Football Drops Defensive Battle To #15 Grand View

Des Moines, IA - It's been an exciting off-season for the Graceland football team but after much anticipation, the Yellowjackets finally kicked off their 2012 campaign Saturday night.

After a rough 2011, GU has high hopes for this year with a revamped roster. The Jackets knew their maturing team would be tested right out of the gates this year as they opened the season in Des Moines against nationally ranked, #15 Grand View University.

After giving the Vikings a tough fight all game, Graceland wasn't able to generate enough offense to pull off the upset, falling, 26-6. The Jackets ran 80 plays on the night to Grand View's 56 and GU had five more yards of offense (284-279). The Jacket defense won the battle of turnovers forcing five of them, including three interceptions.

Head coach Jeff Douglas was pleased with his team's performance and knew Saturday's season opening game against a team as good as the Vikings would prove a challenge for his young squad.

"We've made huge strides since last season," said Coach Douglas after the game. "We knew how good Grand View was last year and expected a battle tonight. That's exactly what we got."

After a Dorian Smith interception on the first play from scrimmage, Graceland mounted a drive down field to open the contest, that resulted in an Anthony Wood twenty-four yard field goal. Grand View would counter on its next drive with a field goal and then scored a seventy-one yard touchdown, off of of a tipped pass, a quarter later. The touchdown gave the Vikings a 10-3 halftime lead.

The second half saw much of the same for the Jackets. Despite being inside the redzone on three separate occasions, Graceland scored only one more field goal on the night and was outscored 16-3 by the Vikings in the half.

Raysean Brown led Graceland offensively catching eight passes for 64 yards. Quarterback Matt Fink was 18-38 for 161 yards through the air. Newcomer Terrence Wells led the Graceland ground game rushing thirteen times for fifty-seven yards.

Defensively the Yellowjackets were led by senior safety, Dorian Smith. Smith intercepted two passes in the game and recorded three tackles. Junior linebacker Johnny Carrasco led GU in tackles with nine.

"We had some unfortunate things that happened in tonight's game," added Douglas. "We also made plenty of mistakes that we need to improve on. However, our coaching staff has preached all season to the team it's about how you respond," he said. "That's the big test now. Can we put this behind us and focus on a very important game next week?

"This is a great group of guys who work hard and play for each other," continued Douglas. "We didn't know for sure what we had coming into tonight's game. We have a much better feel for things heading into next week of preparation and I expect to be even better," he finished.

The Jackets will open the home portion of its schedule next week as they enter conference play against Culver-Stockton College in Lamoni at 2pm. Stay tuned to GUjackets.com for continuing coverage of the Graceland football team and all of Jacket athletics.