Clarion Golden Eagles (3-7, 2-5 PSAC West) vs. West Chester Golden Rams (6-4, 4-3 PSAC East)
Saturday, November 12 // 12 p.m. // Clarion, Pa. // Memorial Stadium

MEDIA COVERAGE

Radio: Mike Kalinowski will have the radio call for Golden Eagle home games on the Golden Eagle Radio Network:

• AM 1120 WKQW
• WKQW Fox Sports 104.1
• WWCH The G.O.A.T. 94.1 FM

Streaming Video: All PSAC member institutions stream football games free of charge on the PSAC Sports Digital Network. Games are available on the web, and fans can download the PSAC Sports Digital Network App on the following: 

• Mobile: App Store (iOS), Google Play (Android), Amazon Fire
• Streaming: Amazon Fire, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku

Live Stats: Fans can follow along with live stats from all home Golden Eagle football contests through SIDEARM live stats. Road game links will be available on the schedule at ClarionGoldenEagles.com.


The Kickoff    
The Golden Eagles will wrap up the 2022 season at home when they welcome the Golden Rams of West Chester to Memorial Stadium on Saturday, November 12. Kickoff is scheduled for 12 p.m. Prior to the game, the team will honor their senior class. The Senior Day ceremony will take place at approximately 11:25 a.m.

Series History

• This will be the 25th all-time meeting between the Golden Eagles and the Golden Rams, with West Chester holding a 21-3 advantage in the all-time series that dates back to the 1960 season. The teams have met sparingly over the years, competing against one another just eight times since the start of the 2000 season.
• The Golden Rams have won five straight meetings in the series with the Golden Eagles, with Clarion's last win coming on Oct. 12, 2002 at Memorial Stadium. The Golden Eagles won that meeting 34-28, with Glenn Lovelace rushing for 181 yards and two touchdowns on Homecoming. Scott McGrady finished with 18 tackles, one sack and one fumble recovery.
• This will be the first time West Chester and Clarion have met in six years. The last time they clashed was also at Memorial Stadium, with the Golden Rams winning that meeting by a 37-10 score on Nov. 12, 2016. Kevin Genevro caught a 78-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter of that game.
• Most famously, the teams met three times in the PSAC Championship game - in 1966, 1967 and 1969. West Chester got the better of the Golden Eagles in 1967 and 69, but Clarion won the first meeting in 1966.

About the Opponent

• West Chester was predicted to finish third in the PSAC East division according to the preseason coaches' poll, one year after going 6-5 overall and 4-3 in the East.
• The Golden Rams opened the season with a 17-16 home victory against Bentley before falling by a 35-14 score to Slippery Rock. They closed out PSAC crossover action on Sept. 17 with a 29-23  road win at Gannon. West Chester shut out the Golden Knights in the second half en route to the victory.
• Since falling to Shepherd by a 47-14 score on Oct. 22, West Chester has won back-to-back games against Lock Haven and Kutztown, winning by a combined 86-19 margin in those contests. Their win over the Golden Bears' was the Golden Rams' first win in that long-standing rivalry since 2018. The Golden Rams held the Golden Bears to under 260 yards of total offense.
• Jackson Taylor is the reigning PSAC East Defensive Athlete of the Week after recording 11 tackles and 1.5 sacks against Kutztown. He ranks third in the PSAC with 18.0 tackles for loss on the season, while teammate Zach Liggitt is fifth in the conference with 8.5 total sacks on the year.
• Ja'Den McKenzie is tied for fifth in the PSAC with seven rushing touchdowns this season.

Last Week

• The Golden Eagle football team fell to their second nationally-ranked opponent in as many weeks, dropping a 45-0 decision to #17/16 IUP at George P. Miller Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
• Clarion never stopped fighting against IUP, continuing to work for stops and pushing the ball down the field. However, the Golden Eagles were unable to muster much on the ground against the Crimson Hawks, finishing with just 60 rushing yards on the day. Leading the team in rushing was Khalil Owens, who carried 13 times for 43 yards.
• Defensively, the Golden Eagles were led by Drew Blon and Shane Kemper, who recorded 10 tackles apiece. Blon also contributed a tackle for loss, making him one of four Golden Eagles to finish with a TFL on the day. Jordan Villafane had three tackles, two pass break-ups and a tackle for loss.

Meet the New Boss

• Raymond Monica, a two-time American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Region 1 Coach of the Year and two-time Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) East Coach of the Year with more than 30 years of experience at the college level, became the 14th coach in Golden Eagle history on Feb. 17, 2022.
• Before coming to Clarion, Monica was an assistant coach at Southeastern Louisiana from 2019-21, including a one-year stint as the defensive coordinator in 2021. The Lions made the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoffs in 2019 and 2021, winning their first round game in both of those seasons. In 2021, the Lions finished 15th in the final FCS rankings of the year.
• Where Golden Eagle fans may best recognize Monica, though, would be his tenure as Kutztown's head football coach from 2006-12. He turned the Golden Bears into one of the leading programs in the conference, culminating with back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Division II Super Region One playoffs in 2010-11.

PSAC Announces Preseason Coaches Poll
The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) announced the results of their preseason coaches poll on August 4. The Golden Eagles were predicted to finish eighth in the PSAC West division in 2022.

PSAC West Division (First Place Votes)
T1.    Slippery Rock (3)
T1.    IUP (3)
3.    California (PA) (2)
4.    Gannon
T5.    Edinboro
T5.    Seton Hill
7.    Mercyhurst
8.    Clarion

PSAC East Division (First Place Votes)

1. Shepherd (4)
2. Kutztown (4)
3. West Chester
4. Shippensburg
5. East Stroudsburg
6. Bloomsburg
7. Millersville
8. Lock Haven

Hager Brings Experience, Championship Lineage to Clarion

• Defensive coordinator Josh Hager enters his first season on the Golden Eagle staff in 2022, one year after service as the defensive coordinator at NCAA Division III Alvernia. Prior to that, he ran the defense at Missouri Southern from 2019-20, where he tutored the top two tacklers in the MIAA.
• As the defensive coordinator for Garden City Community College from 2016-18, Hager produced one of the top defensive units in the nation, and helped the Broncbusters win the 2016 NJCAA national championship.
• Among those players coached by Hager at GCCC were one national Defensive Player of the Year, two conference Defensive Players of the Year, two conference Defensive Linemen of the Year, 11 All-Americans, 41 First Team All-Conference players, and one first round draft pick in Mike Hughes (Minnesota Vikings - 2018).
• Hager is the son of legendary football coach Rocky Hager, whose career highlights include leading North Dakota State to seven NCAA Tournament appearances and two NCAA Division II championships (1988, 90).

Pioneer of "The Fly" Comes to Clarion 

• The Golden Eagle offense will be under the tutelage of veteran coach Mark Speckman, who brings more than 40 years of coaching experience to the program.
• The pioneer of the Fly offense that is widely used across high school, collegiate and professional ranks, Speckman spent the previous five seasons as the assistant head coach and running backs coach at UC Davis. He was part of the Aggies' 2018 Big Sky conference championship season.
• Speckman spent 15 seasons as a collegiate head coach, including 14 years at Willamette. He guided the team to an 82-59 record from 1997-2011, including two Northwest Conference championships, eight league title games and three NCAA Division III postseason appearances. Speckman's 2008 team finished 11-1 and ranked fourth nationally, earning him his second Northwest Conference Coach of the Year award and AFCA Division III West Region Coach of the Year acclaim.
• In addition to coaching football, Speckman has also become well-known for his motivational speaking engagements. Born without hands, he avoided drawing attention to himself as a younger athlete but has since embraced his own story to the point of earning numerous speaking appearances, including bookings at Boeing, Nike, Northwest Mutual, Patterson Dental, the Million Dollar Roundtable and other organizations.

Hardcore History

• The Golden Eagles and the Golden Rams have met three times in PSAC Championships games  in their histories, with all three meetings coming in a four-year span in the late 1960s.
• The first meeting came in 1966, and was a 28-26 win for the Golden Eagles on Nov. 19 in Clarion.
• The Golden Eagles led 21-6 at one point but West Chester scored three touchdowns to make it 26-21. Clarion Sports Hall of Famer Jim Alcorn orchestrated a scoring drive with less than two minutes to play, hitting Jim Becker for the game-winning score.
• The Golden Rams got the ball back with time on the clock, but Fran Sirianni - father of current Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni - secured the win with an interception.

The Running Men

• It has been no secret this year that the Golden Eagle offense is predicated on the ability to run the football, and with just one game to go, it is time to put things into context.
• Clarion enters today's game with a total of 1,541 rushing yards on the season. That already ranks as the most since the team ran for 1,967 yards in the 2013 season. 
• LIkewise, Clarion's average of 154.1 rushing yards per game entering today is their best per-game rushing average since 2013, when they averaged 178.8 yards per game.
• Since 1997, only eight Golden Eagle teams have averaged better than 150 rushing yards per game.

Bicentennial Man

• With nine stops against IUP last week, Kareem Hamdan reached a significant milestone when he became the latest player in program history to top 200 career tackles.
• Hamdan is now at 207 tackles entering this weekend, and is on pace to crack the top-10 in program history by the end of his senior year in 2023.
• The most recent Golden Eagle to top 200 career tackles was Sam Fareri, who finished his career  in 2019 with 257 stops.
• The last Clarion player to reach 300 tackles in a career was Layne Skundrich, who finished with 322 career stops in 2018.

Owens Tops 1K

• With 56 yards on 13 carries against Edinboro on Oct. 22, Khalil Owens made some exclusive company by reaching 1,000 career rushing yards at Clarion.
• Owens is now the 29th player in program history to top 1,000 career rushing yards, doing so in the span of just 18 games.
• When factoring in his 193 rushing yards at Seton Hill, Owens now has 1,326 collegiate rushing yards.
• Owens ranks 10th in the PSAC in rushing at 62.3 yards per game, totaling 623 yards on 496 carries to date. His five rushing touchdowns are tied for ninth.

Benedek's Nose for the End Zone

• With a rushing touchdown against Edinboro on Oct. 22, Zach Benedek maintained his share of the team lead in rushing scores with five on the year. 
• Benedek currently leads all PSAC quarterbacks with five rushing touchdowns in 2022, a number that is tied for ninth overall in the PSAC. 
• Benedek has now scored seven total touchdowns this year, including five rushing touchdowns and two receiving touchdowns.
• Benedek's seven total touchdowns this season rank him 12th in the PSAC and most among quarterbacks.
• The last Golden Eagle quarterback to record seven or more total touchdowns was Tyler Huether, who finished with eight rushing touchdowns during the 2009 season.

Couple of Fins

• Zach Benedek and Khalil Owens are tied for the team lead with five rushing touchdowns apiece.
• They are the first pair of Golden Eagles to record five or more rushing touchdowns apiece in the same season since 2014.
• That year, Delrece Williams (6) and Connor Simmons (6) both topped five rushing touchdowns on the year.
• The Golden Eagles also turned that same feat in 2013, that time with Bobby Thomas and Darrelle Carson scoring seven and six touchdowns, respectively. 

There's Scoring Defense, and "Scoring" Defense

• With a pick-six against Mercyhurst on Oct. 15, Kareem Hamdan became the third Golden Eagle defensive player to score a touchdown this season.
• Clarion has had two players return interceptions for touchdowns this year - Hamdan (Oct. 15 at Mercyhurst) and Connor Lyczek (Oct. 1 vs. California).
• Legend Davis did not score a true "defensive" touchdown but rather a special teams one, when he recovered a blocked field goal against Seton Hill on Oct. 8 and returned it 67 yards for a score. 

Road Warriors

• With their win over Mercyhurst on Oct. 15, the Golden Eagles improved to 3-1 in road games in 2022. That ensured they would finish with a winning record on the road for the first time in more than a decade.
• The Golden Eagles had not posted a winning record away from home since the 2010 season, a year in which Clarion went 3-2 on the road but 1-5 at home.
• Clarion has been .500 or better in road games a few times in that span, most recently in 2018 (2-2).

Roby Shows His Versatility

• Against Slippery Rock on Oct. 29, Nathan Roby saw himself with a featured role in the offense and acquitted himself well in the process. 
• Roby totaled 10 touches on offense, carrying the ball six times for 51 yards and catching four passes for 27 yards. 
• At one point in the third quarter, Roby recorded four straight rushes of seven or more yards, including a long run of 14 yards.
• The first major action of Roby's career came in last year's meeting with IUP, when he finished with 66 rushing yards and 44 receiving yards -- 110 combined yards -- on 12 total touches. 

Golden Leg

• Jarrett Esposito is the only kicker in the PSAC to have made six or more field goals this year without a miss. 
• He is also a perfect 17-of-17 on extra point attempts this year. Only one other PSAC kicker - East Stroudsburg's Devin Bartholomew - has been perfect with more than 17 attempts this year, making 25 straight PATs.
• Earlier this year Esposito was named the PSAC West Special Teams Athlete of the Week after kicking the game-winning field goal against Mercyhurst on Oct. 15.
• Esposito also showed his ability to pull off a trick play against Slippery Rock on Oct. 29, completing a pass on a fake punt attempt in the first quarter.