Published: October 24, 2009 12:05 am         

Engineers not discouraged entering final stretch

TERRE HAUTE — Rose-Hulman has had a tough time this football season, especially since the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference portion of the schedule rolled around.

But despite a 3-4 overall record and a 1-3 HCAC mark, the Engineers are not the least bit discouraged heading into their final three games of the regular season.

The Engineers have a renewed optimism this week, facing winless Bluffton College in a road game at 1:30 p.m. today.

The Engineers’ optimism vs. Bluffton is not the fact their opponent is winless, but also the knowledge of having been close in their last five games. In those five games (four of them losses), the final margin of victory has been 1, 7, 3, 3 and 7 points.

“Over the last four or five weeks, we have been right there … close to winning all those games,” commented Rose coach Steve Englehart during their bus trip to Ohio on Friday. “We just need to handle what we can do well.”

Bluffton ranks from sixth to eighth (last) in all the key HCAC team statistics and that is pointed out in their margins of defeat — losses by 12, 34, 20, 20, 16 and 16 points.

“Bluffton is better than when we played them last year,” Englehart noted. “They will be excited and ready to win knowing we’ve been struggling this year. Bluffton will throw the ball a lot, so it’s most important for us to put pressure on their quarterback.”

Bluffton won just one game last year. Rose leads the series between the two teams 5-0, a 42-14 victory last year at Cook Stadium.

Rose will be led on offense by their all-time leader in passing yardage, senior quarterback Derek Eitel. Eitel set the career yardage mark of 6,566 yards during the Engineers loss to Defiance last week. Eitel is also just 11 completions and four touchdown passes shy of all-time marks in those categories.

“We want to utilize an efficient, short passing game [vs. Bluffton],” Englehart said. “We want to move the chains and supplement our running game.”

The “supplement our running game” comment refers to the Engineers’ not being sure of the playing status of running back Kyle Kovach. Last week, the freshman hurt his ankle in the first half, came back for a bit, then was unable to finish the game.

That bad news is compounded by the Engineers’ already losing senior running back Calvin Bueltel (torn ACL) for the season back on Sept. 19.

“Kyle is day-to-day right now and he has not practiced this week,” Englehart added. “But the doctor has given him clearance to play, so it will be a game-time decision.”

Leading the Engineers’ offense is Eitel with 1,782 yards passing and 14 TD passes to nine interceptions. Kovach has 613 yards rushing and eight TDs, while Reed Eason and Thomas Reives have 545 and 518 receiving yards respectively.

On defense, Scott Eaton leads the HCAC in tackles. The junior linebacker has 15 or more tackles the past four games and needs just 11 to reach 200 in his career.

Bluffton is paced offensively by senior quarterback Brock Miller, throwing for 666 yards with a 55 percent completion rate.

Rose will conclude its season with a home game vs. Franklin (Oct. 31) and at Anderson (Nov. 7).