It's official: The EOU Football team is good. Really good.

As the first week of classes are about to start up, the EOU football team wanted to give the student body and Mountie faithful something to cheer about.

And cheer they did.

Living up to its No. 23 national ranking, EOU defeated Montana State-Northern, 45-14, Saturday afternoon at Community Stadium in front of a raucous home crowd.

After allowing the MSU-Northern Lights to score early in the first quarter, the Mounties never looked back, rallying off 45 unanswered points manned by sophomore quarterback Chris Ware.

Three touchdown tosses, and one rushing touchdown later, Ware had the Mounties looking back to form behind his 415 total yards.

Sophomore running back Kevin Sampson had a coming out party of sorts, showcasing his versatility to the crowd with 51 rushing yards, 96 receiving yards and one touchdown.

Sophomore quarterback Jake Burroughs came in relief of Ware to score two rushing touchdowns late.

The Mountie defense was perhaps the biggest key to their victory, totaling five interceptions and a fumble recovery.

Seniors Jeff McNally and Corey Dunn led the defensive effort respectively. Dunn forced a fumble, and picked off two Northern passes, and McNally recovered that fumble and had an interception of his own. Together they combined for 17 tackles.

MSU-Northern started the season as one of the Frontier Conference favorites, ranked 17th in the nation, but after several unexpected defeats they found themselves unranked and 1-3 in conference play.

MSU Northern was led by wide receiver Coda Tchida with two catches for 80 yards and a touchdown.
Defensively, Brandon Grote was in on 16 tackles for the Northern Lights.

EOU will take their 4-0 league record to Helena, Mont. to challenge co-conference leaders and No. 2 in the nation Carroll College Oct. 3rd at 1 P.M. MDT.