Kearney, Neb. – The 5th-ranked Nebraska-Kearney football team will close out the RMAC era this Saturday in the 2011 regular season finale at Ron & Carol Cope Stadium.
 
UNK (9-1, 7-1 RMAC) is looking to win 10 games in a regular season for only the second time in school-history. The 2009 Lopers won a school-record 11 games thanks to a victory in the first round of the Division II playoffs.
 
If all goes according to plan, the Lopers won't have a chance to win an 11th game until the second round of the playoffs.
 
With a win over the 20th-ranked Colorado School of Mines Orediggers (8-2, 6-2 RMAC), UNK will likely receive a first round bye and host a playoff game on November 26th.
 
The 24-team Division II playoff field will be announced Sunday at 4:00 p.m. Central on www.ncaasports.com. First round action begins November 19th.
 
The game Saturday against Mines will kick off at 1:00 p.m. As usual, live stats are available and fans can listen to Dave Jenner call the game on KRNY 102.3 FM as well. For a fee, you can also watch the game via America One.

Not only will 15 Loper seniors be honored prior to kickoff but this is also UNK's final RMAC game. Since joining the league in 1995, the Lopers have gone 97-34 (74.0 win pct.) in conference games and won four titles (shared or outright).
 
Mines represent five of those losses, however, all coming over the last seven years. The 'Diggers posted a 55-53 (3 OT) victory in Golden last season, a loss that kept UNK out of the playoffs.  
 
Kearney's defense, leads the nation in pass defense efficiency (91.57), will look to slow down Mines senior QB Clay Garcia. He threw for 417 yards and four scores in last year's game.
 
While Garcia has been sacked 34 times this fall, he has still thrown 18 TD's and averages an RMAC-best 289 passing yards per game.
 
Since giving up 55 points to Mines, UNK has surrendered just 143 (14.3 ppg) this season. That total includes a kick return for a score by Wayne State and one defensive TD by CSU-Pueblo.
 
Offensively, UNK has had some success running the ball against the Orediggers. Senior RB Rustin Dring (Kearney) went for 216 yards and four scores last year after tallying a career-high 219 yards in 2009.
 
Missing last week's “Snow Bowl” at Fort Lewis, Dring is questionable this week as is junior receiver Tommy Flanagan (Lakewood, Colo.).

Due to his own ailments, Flanagan has played sparingly the last four weeks but still leads the team in catches (35), receiving yards (512) and receiving TD's (six).

Besides Dring, the other seniors are QB Jake Spitzlberger (Lakewood, Colo.), RB Riley Newcomer (Morrison, Colo.), WR's Shane Carraher (Franklin), Nick Cooley (Morrill), Eli Hammond (Colo. Springs, Colo.) and Matt Turco (Lincoln), TE Dane Rudeen (Overton), OL Matt Anderson (Prescott, Ariz.), Stephen Goodin (Hastings) and Andy Keirns (Loveland, Colo.), CB Arthur Hobbs (San Diego, Calif.), ILB Josh Gaede (Hoxie, Kans.) and DE Cory Morten (Loomis) and Alex Paicurich (Westminster, Colo.).