HELENA – Carroll College football opens the season Thursday on the road against Rocky Mountain College.
The 20th-ranked Battlin’ Bears and Saints split the season series last year and Carroll knows they have their work cut out for them if they want to walk out of Billings with a season-opening win.
“We have to play really good assignment defense,” said head coach Mike Van Diest. “We have to play sound, can’t give up the big play. We have to keep the quarterbacks in check, but we have to tackle in the open field, too. They have a lot of skill at the receiver spots, that’s something we’ve kind of harped on over the last couple of years. Offensively we have to be able to control the football. We did that the second game when we played them (last year), but in the first and the second game we didn’t throw the ball as well as we would have liked.”
“They play hard. They have a lot of intensity,” said Carroll starting quarterback Reese Hiibel. “They’re not going to take any plays off, they play hard all the time. They are going throw a lot of things at us, but they play hard. That’s pretty much the main thing.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. Thursday in Billings.
