Stakes high as No. 13 Pittsburg State visits No. 18 Emporia State in MIAA football

There’s a pretty clear-cut path to making it to the NCAA Division II football playoffs when your team plays in the MIAA.

You get one slip-up. You don’t get two.

“We talk about that pretty much every day, because right now it’s do-or-die,” Pittsburg State defensive end Heath Wilson said. “You can get in with one loss, but two losses it’s darn-near impossible. Last year, after we lost to Fort Hays State, we knew we had to win out just to make it.”

With those stakes in mind, it turns Saturday’s game between No. 13 Pittsburg State (4-1, 4-1 MIAA) and No. 18 Emporia State (5-0, 5-0) into one of the nation’s marquee matchups. Pittsburg State’s only loss came at the hands of Washburn last month in Pittsburg.

It’s Emporia State’s first high-profile game of the season. Four of the Hornets’ five wins have come against one-win or winless teams.

“To us, they’re all big games,” Emporia State coach Garin Higgins said. “We’re putting it on the line every time we play, we’re going as hard as we can every time we play. This week is a marquee game because there’s a lot on the line and the two in-state teams playing each other, but we’re in a routine and that’s not going to change because of who we play.”

Emporia State’s success — not just this season but over the last three seasons — has been in big part thanks to the play of senior quarterback Brent Wilson, the MIAA’s leading passer with 1,763 yards (352.1 per game), 17 touchdowns and three interceptions.

The Ponca City, Okla., native led the Hornets to an MIAA runner-up finish and the national playoffs as a sophomore, when he threw for 2,985 yards and 33 touchdowns, but missed the postseason after he broke his collarbone in the regular-season finale. Last season, Wilson had already thrown for more than 1,000 yards when he broke his collarbone in the fourth game of the season — an overtime win against Northeastern State where Wilson actually played the fourth quarter and overtime after the injury, running for the game-winning touchdown.

“I guess I know, more than anybody else, that one play can end your whole season or your whole career,” Wilson said. “It makes you a lot more thankful for what you have and for those opportunities to be on the field.”

It also altered Wilson’s game on a technical level.

“His release is lightning-quick,” said Heath Wilson. “He’s getting the ball out of his hand in basically the same amount of time it takes to hand the ball off. It makes it really difficult to get a good hit on him, and he might throw the ball 50 times a game. If you’re trying to rush the passer against (Emporia State), you better be patient.”

Wilson (6-foot-3, 255 pounds) is second in the MIAA with 4.5 sacks and was an All-American last season. He also understands the patience aspect more than most. Two weeks ago, in Pittsburg State’s 31-24 comeback win at Fort Hays State, he had two sacks on the Tigers’ last drive and sealed the win for Pittsburg State.

The last two weeks, Pittsburg State has outscored its opponents 48-0 in the second half in comeback wins.

“For some reason, we’ve just started slow,” Heath Wilson said. “We don’t have an exact answer why that’s been happening, but we know we’d like to get things done early so we don’t have to play catch-up in the second half. From a players’ perspective, we don’t like getting behind.”

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Stakes high as No. 13 Pittsburg State visits No. 18 Emporia State in MIAA football."