The UW-Eau Claire football team has had a productive bye week after coming up short against Concordia-Moorhead (Minn.) on Sept. 10 with a final score of 25-7 in favor of Concordia-Moorhead. Eau Claire football head coach Dan Larson says the team is remaining positive during their bye week despite the early season struggles.

“I think our guys are extremely upbeat,” Larson said. “We had a very good week of practice. I think it was a hard, but good practice and I think they’re looking forward to the upcoming week.”

Eau Claire sophomore wide receiver, Leeshaun Evans, also feels that the football program is getting back on track thanks to having more time to prepare.

“Coach wanted us to really push each other this week,” Evans said. “We also used this week to get back to our fundamentals and technique as a whole on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. I feel like we are really getting back to what we did on day one of camp.”

Blugold football has struggled to win the first two games, losing by an average of 27 points per game. The rushing game has been a struggle for the Eau Claire offense, as they have only managed to collect 60 yards on average the first two contests of the season. Head coach Dan Larson believes the solution to the team’s struggles lies within their own locker room.

“We are in control of our failures right now,” Larson said. “We are missing out on a lot of little things. So, I think that our guys realize that there has been a lot of self-inflicted mistakes which have led to us not having any wins. And all of these self-inflicted mistakes are things that we can correct and fix.”

The next matchup on the schedule for the Blugolds begins at 2 pm this Saturday when they face off against Wisconsin Lutheran at Raabe Stadium in Wauwatosa. Larson has some specific ideas on how to come out of Raabe Stadium Saturday with their first win.

“I think offensively, trying to create and have few more explosive plays,” Larson said. “We did a little better on cutting down the negative plays from week one to week two and now we’ve got to take that same approach and that same mentality and start getting some bigger plays to move the ball down the field.”

Defensively Larson said they need to enhance their communication skills and play faster. Doing more attacking and dictating on the field is the style of football they want to play Larson said.

Eau Claire has a solid chance to snag their first win Saturday, as Wisconsin Lutheran is also 0-2, losing by an average of 28.5 points per game (slightly higher than the Blugold’s average).

The game can be heard live on Blugold Radio WDRK-99.9FM at 2 pm this Saturday, and immediate post game box scores will be available on blugolds.com.