HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – After six games this season, Lenoir-Rhyne University’s football program is like a ship at sea looking for a lighthouse for a course of direction.
The Bears (2-4, 1-3 South Atlantic Conference) travel to face conference foe Limestone (3-3, 2-1) today with a 6 p.m. kickoff at The Reservation on the campus of Gaffney (S.C.) High.
KELLAR
LRU has four games left – three of them on the road – and must go 3-1 to finish .500 and avoid a second straight losing season.
Despite a sub-.500 record and a second straight losing season possible, LRU second-year head coach Mike Kellar remains upbeat and optimistic.
“A year ago, I don’t think we were big enough, strong enough and I still don’t,” said Kellar on Bears Talk, a Wednesday podcast. “We need to improve in all those areas but we look like a college football team right now.
“The attitude is positive and we play as a team. I really need to look at the silver lining in all the positives.
“The mark of a well-coached team is they finish the season a better team than they started the season.”
Four years removed from playing for an NCAA Division II title, the Bears dropped their last outing to Newberry, S.C., and they haven’t won back-to-back games since 2015 when Ian Shields was the head coach.
LRU is 2-4 after six games, as it was last season.
The Bears have allowed 30 or more points in three games this season and in 10 of their last 17. Offensively, they’ve scored more than 14 points only three times this season.
Kellar said the Bears are better at this stage of the season than they were last season.
“We are much improved from where we were at a year ago,” he said. “We are able to do more things offensively than we were a year ago.
“We are nowhere where we need to be offensively but I would say we are probably about 75 percent on where we need to be.”
LRU’s defense is allowing an average of 378 yards per game.
“We are much better defensively than we were a year ago,” said Kellar. “We have had some bad moments but we have been pretty solid. Against Newberry we held them pretty much in check.
“They scored two touchdowns on a scramble drill and really only drove the ball two drives against us.
“Defensively, we are probably about 80-85 percent on where we need to be.”
Last week, Newberry scored on four of its first seven possessions while LRU had four punts, a fumble, an interception and the half ended on its first seven possessions.
LRU and Limestone were picked to finish tied for last in the SAC coaches’ preseason poll. They’ve played twice with each winning once.
Limestone beat the Bears last season in Hickory The last back-to-back losing seasons at LRU were 2008 and 2009, when the Bears finished 3-8 and 5-6, respectively, under then-head coach Fred Goldsmith.
Limestone beat the Bears last season in Hickory.