On Saturday August 31st, the Lumberjacks kicked off their season in their first home game at Findlay Toyota Field at the J. Lawrence Walkup Skydome, against Lincoln (CA) University.
Northern Arizona is coming off a 2023-24 season that had high points, however their final record was just 5-6.
The Lumberjacks entered this game with new head coach Brian Wright, who was the Pittsburgh State University’s head coach since 2019.
The more shocking part of Wright’s entrance was that he brought on an entirely new staff with the exception of one graduate assistant that stayed. In addition to the brand-new staff, Wright and his staff recruited 65 new players to NAU’s team.
The Lincoln Oaklanders entered their second game of the season after suffering a 45-7 loss at the College of Idaho. Oaklanders head coach Desmond Gumbs currently holds a record of 3-29 as head coach.
NAU received the kickoff and right of the bat a scuffle took place at the 40-yard line. The first penalties would be awarded to both teams and would result in a redo of the kickoff. After that kickoff, the Lumberjack offense would line up on the 25-yard line.
Lincolns offense would start at their own 44-yard line after a failed 4th down conversion by NAU, but they too would fail on fourth down.
NAU Sophomore QB Ty Pennington, would score NAU’s first touchdown of the season on a 20-yard run to the endzone.
A Lincoln player committed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, NAU got the ball on the 14-yard line, and Freshmen running back Seth Cromwell rushed for a 14-yard touchdown increasing the lead to 14-0.
After the game Cromwell spoke on the offensive performance saying, “The offensive execution was great, all the plays that we ran were executed almost perfectly because the gaps were there, the holes were there.”
Special teams senior Tim Williams scored himself a touchdown after a lineman blocked the punt and he scooped and scored NAU’s 3rd touchdown in the first quarter.
Lincoln scored their first points of the game when their quarterback threw a touchdown despite being shoved to the ground by redshirt junior defensive lineman Cory Hall.
Before Lincoln could even finish celebrating their first points, redshirt sophomore linebacker Ammon Allen would score a two-point conversion after the extra point attempt was blocked, increasing the lead to 23-6.
Wide receiver BJ Fleming caught a touchdown pass and NAU elected to go for the 2-point conversion, which was successful after J’Wan Evans ran it up the gut.
NAU entered redshirt sophomore quarterback Angel Flores with 5 minutes left to go in the half and on his second snap he threw a 38 yard pass putting the Lumberjacks at the 6 yard line.
Senior tight end Bryzai White put points in his stat column when he dove in the endzone for his first touchdown of his senior season.
NAU QB Angel Flores tossed his second touchdown of the game when he threw a 13-yard pass to redshirt junior Ta’ir Brooks with 2 minutes till halftime.
The Lumberjacks went to half comfortably ahead of the Oaklanders 45-6.
Angel Flores would continue at the quarterback position to start the second half, and the offense marched right down the field where Seth Cromwell would score his second touchdown of the day.
Freshmen defensive back Michael Beresford got his first interception in the third quarter when he cut off a pass thrown by Lincolns quarterback.
Towards the end of the third quarter with a 60-point lead, Wright pulled his starters and let the bench players finish the game. Wright spoke to reporters during the postgame interview about the struggle of wanting to let the starters play, but also giving rookies some time.
“It is a challenge, we had some short drives, and we really wanted to get that first group a lot of work and all of a sudden you look into the second quarter and they hadn’t really had a lot of work, so there is a balance there—I thought that we got to see some things out of that first group and certainly got that second group in pretty quick,” said Wright.
Northern Arizona will go on the road the next three weeks with their next opponent being University of Arizona.
After the game head coach Brian Wright spoke on the upcoming match against Arizona saying, “We’ll watch the film, we’ll watch the tape as we do every week and evaluate the things we did well—evaluate the things that we didn’t do well.”
