The Eastern New Mexico football team will look to record their first home win of the 2018 season on Saturday evening at 7 p.m. inside Greyhound Stadium as they take on Western New Mexico in the inaugural Chile Bowl.

The Hounds and Mustangs have long been considered bitter rivals, and will finally make their cross-state rivalry official this Saturday night on what will also serve as the grand finale for a full week of homecoming events on the campus of Eastern New Mexico. Eastern will be looking to rebound off of two straight losses at the hands of nationally-ranked opponents and will take on a struggling Mustangs team that pose as the first opponent of the year to enter Greyhound Stadium unranked.

WELCOME BACK GREYHOUND NATION
• Week seven will serve as the title event for the 2018 Homecoming Week on the campus of Eastern New Mexico as the Hounds will be turning their attention to the final half of the 2018 season.
• The Hounds will be looking for their second straight homecoming victory in a row after defeating the University of Texas Permian Basin a season ago by a final of 20-17.

THE BEGINNINGS OF A GOOD ONE
• The match-up between the Hounds and the Mustangs will also represent the first official meeting between the two teams in the inaugural Chile Bowl, which will officially mark the beginnings of a rivalry 57 years in the making.
• The winner of the match-up will maintain possession of the Chile Bowl trophy for a full calendar year and will be presented the trophy in a celebration immediately following the conclusion of the game.

FINALLY A BREATHER
• Much of the 1-5 start for the Hounds this season can be directly attributed to a brutal start to the season as far as scheduling goes with two 10-hour plus road trips to Missouri S&T and Texas A&M-Kingsville on top of four nationally-ranked opponents in the first six weeks of the season
• Despite the tough scheduling, Eastern competed well against the conference’s top three teams in Texas A&M-Commerce, Midwestern State and Tarleton State and will now conclude the season with games against four opponents who have a record of .500 or worse.

UTTER DOMINANCE
• Eastern New Mexico has held firm control of the historic rivalry with Western New Mexico. The Hounds hold a 40-15-2 all-time record over the Mustangs and have won the last 13 straight meetings between the two teams.
• The Hounds have lost just four times to Western dating back to 1980 and have scored 30 or more points in each of the last four meetings between the two teams.
• Last year’s match-up between the two teams proved to be an interesting one as the Hounds forced five turnovers and limited the Mustangs to just 24 yards rushing to earn a 37-34 victory. The win was the first Lone Star Conference victory for the Hounds and the sixth straight road win in the series for Eastern.

SCOUTING THE MUSTANGS
•First year head coach Frank Tristan and the Mustangs will enter Saturday night’s contest with Eastern with a record of 0-5 and have struggled to find their footing early this season. A week after taking the University of Texas-Permian Basin down to the wire in a 21-20 defeat, the Mustangs were blanked at home last week 52-0 by Angelo State.
• Western ranks last in scoring offense (11.2 ppg) and scoring defense (38.8 ppg) in the Lone Star Conference and have totaled more than 20 points just once this year.
• Freshman wide receiver Kourde Roberts has been a bright spot on an otherwise stagnant offensive attack for Western and ranks eighth in the LSC with an average of 61.4 receiving yards per game. Roberts had an extremely productive game in the Mustang’s LSC opener against West Texas A&M, hauling in eight passes for 112 yards and two touchdowns.
• Defensive lineman James Lee leads the team with an average of 6.4 tackles per game and ranks fifth in the LSC with four sacks on the year.
• Western opened the season with two Division I opponents in San Diego University and the University of Idaho, and had shown signs of marked improvement prior to last week’s 52-0 loss to Angelo State.

A DEEP HOLE
• Eastern New Mexico was unable to generate the early momentum required to pull off a road upset at no. 21 Tarleton State last weekend and fell behind 31-0 after the first play of the second half was fumbled and returned eight yards for a touchdown by Tarleton State.
• The Hounds used a bit of trickery to finally get on the board with a 62-yard pass from wide receiver Russell Montoya to runningback Johnny Smith. Eastern tacked on three rushing touchdowns from Wyatt Strand, Paul Terry, and Kazyan Martin to record 28 second half points.
• Those 28 points are the most points the Hounds have scored in a half all season and came against a Tarleton defense that was at or near the top of the league in nearly every statistical category.

TOP TEN BUDDIES
• Senior Brad Hardin and sophomore Dante Urrea have posed as major match-up problems throughout the season for the Hounds and now each rank inside the top-10 in the LSC in tackles per game.
• Eastern is one of three teams to have two players ranked in the top 10 after Urrea recorded his third straight week of 10 or more tackles last weekend in Stephenville. Urrea ranks seventh in the LSC with 8.4 tackles per game while Hardin averages 7.8 himself.

NOT JUST A RUNNER
• Junior Johnny Smith has made his impact felt all over the field this season and has proved valuable in multiple offensive categories. The El Paso, Texas native ranks third on the team with an average of 56.3 yards per game and has also hauled in all three of the Hounds receiving touchdowns on the season.
• Smith ranks third in the LSC in all-purpose yards with an average of 147.7 yards per game and ranks second in the league with 344 total kickoff return yards.

MARKED IMPROVEMENT
• After ranking second-to-last in the LSC a season ago in pass defense (274.0 ypg), the Hounds have seen a marked improvement in their defensive secondary this year, ranking fifth in the Lone Star giving up just 220.0 yards through the air.
• Much of that credit can be attributed to the addition to defensivebacks Tony Andrews and Ricky Barfield as well as the senior leadership of Todd Countee in the secondary.
• Andrews has recorded six pass break ups so far this season, second most in the LSC ,while Barfield ranks fourth on the team with 32 tackles.

THE WEEK BEFORE
• With the heavily anticipated Wagon Wheel game between Eastern and West Texas A&M next week in Canyon, Texas, the Hounds will be looking for an impressive performance this week as they have done quite often in years past ahead of the yearly match-up.
• Eastern has won three straight games the week ahead of the Wagon Wheel game and will look to maintain focus this homecoming weekend before making the short trip over to Canyon to square off with a West Texas team that is red hot after taking down the previously no. 10 ranked Central Washington on the road two weeks ago.

MORE THAN ONE HOMECOMING
• Head coach Kelley Lee will man the sidelines against his alma mater Western New Mexico this weekend and has seen nothing but success against a program that he once quarterbacked.
• Lee graduated from Western in 2000 and played quarterback for the Mustangs after graduating from Hot Springs High School where he was a standout in three sports and captured four state championships throughout his prep career.

A LOOK AROUND THE LEAGUE
• Saturday will stand as a big point in the season for multiple Lone Star Conference teams as the second half of the regular season officially gets underway.
• A heavy-weight match-up between the top two teams entering the weekend will headline the week as undefeated no. 16 Tarleton State will travel to no. 7 Texas A&M-Commerce in a meeting of the final two teams left that are undefeated in conference play.