On Saturday at 1:00 pm, Eastern University Football (4–1, 3–1 MAC) welcomes the Albright College Lions (3-2, 2-2 MAC) to Radnor Street Road for an important mid-season MAC contest. Halftime of this weekend's games will be the exact midpoint of a MAC season that has already defied expectations. Over the past two games, Eastern has wins over the two preseason favorites, but a three-point loss at Lebanon Valley in week three leaves the Eagles no room for error in future games.
The Lions moved into the middle of the standings with two-straight dominating wins. After a tight loss to Del Val in week two, The Lions snapped a six-game skid against Widener with a 35-9 win in Reading. The Pride had won every Pretzel Bowl contest since a 9-7 Albright win in 2017. In the six losses, Widener outscored the Lions 252-72 and held Albright to seven points or less in four games. The Lions handled Alvernia, 38-14, last weekend.

Even with a trip to league-leading Misericordia on the docket for next weekend the Eagles will need to be attentive to the task at hand today.
Quarterback Chase Roberts leads an Albright offense that averages nearly 400 yards er game. The junior signal-caller has thrown for 11 touchdowns and over 1300 yards in his second season under center at Albright. Arthur Poindexter has 48 grabs and six scores and Alden Stickler has four touchdowns and has  caught multiple balls in each of Albright's five games.

The Lions big offensive line has allowed only 7 sacks and  looks to clear paths for John Boston and Roger Romany Walker. Boston averages over 100 yards per game.

On defense, the Lions have sacked the quarterback 12 times and have eight takeaways. Widener and Alvernia combined for only 57 rushing yards on 42 attempts. Misericordia and Delaware Valley beat the Lions on the ground for 168 and 140 yards respectively.

The Eagles are clearly a run-first team on offense. Jeremiah Avrilien and Brett Nabb are both in the top four in yards per game  rushing, and at 269.4 yards per game  the Eagles average 60 yards per game more than LVC. With defenses focused on the running game, Nabb has picked his spots to be effective in the air. Over the past three games, he has thrown for 155 yards an outing and completed just under 70 percent of his throws with his only interception in that stretch coming on a deflection. Eastern has been good in the red zone all year. In their last two wins, the Eagles have turned 9-of-10 red-zone trips into points.

The Eastern defense came up with several huge fourth-down stops against Delaware Valley and has had dominant stretches. Their challenge against Albright will be to maintain that aggressiveness while eliminating the big plays that have plagued them in the past three games. Del Val, LVC, and King's all had plays go for over 60 yards.

With John Nolek and kicking well and John Westfield continuing to flip fields, the Eagles will hope to win the field position battle. Nolek was 3-for-3 on field goals last wee and he pushed the Aggies deep with kickoffs at or near the goal line.

Saturday's game and games for the rest of theyear will start at 1:00 pm. Fans not able to attend will be able to follow on livestream or listen live on the Jakib Sports Network.