FOOTBALL: Looking Ahead To Ferris -Grand Valley Football Game

BIG RAPIDS - Lets face it, Grand Valley State University is without a true competitive rival in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference as far as football is concerned.

The Lakers, the top-ranked team in the country, steamrolled nationally-ranked Saginaw Valley State (a good football team) last weekend and will do pretty much the same to all its opponents for the remainder of the season. There are many who bill GVSU-SVSU as a rivalry. And, in a sense it still is, but the competitive aspect of the rivalry has vanished. Ferris State University and Grand Valley is a rivalry for alums, but the Bulldogs have not defeated the Lakers since the 1999 season.

Now, Ashland has some offensive weapons to a few points on the scoreboard against the Lakers, but I doubt the Eagles have enough to make GVSU even a little uneasy.

When Ashland is on, it's a tough team to handle.

There will be some teams that will play Grand Valley tough for stretches, but any GLIAC upset of Grand Valley would be the stunner of all stunners this season.

Grand Rapids Press columnist Greg Johnson blogs that future GLIAC opponents should be scared as the Lakers still have a lot of room to improve - in his opinion.

The Grand Valley State football team earned an "A-minus" with a 38-7 win against Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rival Saginaw Valley State on Saturday at Lubbers Stadium.

So much for the "rivals," who made claims before the game about being at Grand Valley's level.

Oops.

SVSU was thumped hard early and often in this one.

Here's the bad news for the rest of the GLIAC: The Lakers have room to improve in several areas.

Johnson then went on to list some areas where he sees room for growth for the Lakers.

Johnson then adds this at the end:

Looking ahead

Grand Valley travels to Ferris State for a 7 p.m. game Saturday. Ferris, which was rolled 43-7 by unbeaten Findlay over the weekend, is 1-2.

The Bulldogs serve as the "local" rival for GVSU, although they haven't topped the Lakers since 1999. Ferris did give GVSU a brief struggle a year ago before losing 31-13.

Look for more blogs previewing this weekend's Ferris-GVSU game and the rest of the GLIAC football games on tap for this weekend.

Grand Rapids Press:
http://blog.mlive.com/outofbounds/2009/09/dont_be_fooled_by_big_win_agai.html