2019 Football Game Notes Contact: BRANDON VICKREY Office: 219.464.5396 Valpo Sports Media Relations [email protected] www.valpoathletics.com Athletics-Recreation Center 1009 Union Street Valparaiso IN 46383 2019 Schedule and Results Central Connecticut (2-0, 0-0 NEC) Date Opponent Time/Result at Valparaiso (0-1, 0-0 PFL) Aug. 29 at Eastern Kentucky L 53-7 Game #2: Saturday, Sept. 14, 2019, 1 p.m. CT Sept. 14 Central Connecticut State 1 p.m. Brown Field (5,000) – Valparaiso, Ind. Sept. 21 at Truman State 7 p.m. This Week in Valpo Football: After opening the season with a Thursday game Sept. 28 University of Charleton 1 p.m. then enjoying a bye in Week 2, the Valparaiso University football team will have Oct. 5 at Drake* 1 p.m. had 15 days off between games by the time it takes the field for Saturday’s home Oct. 12 Dayton* 1 p.m. opener against Central Connecticut. Saturday will mark the first home game under Oct. 19 at San Diego* 4 p.m. Landon Fox and will kick off the program’s 100-year celebration that will take place Oct. 26 Stetson* Noon throughout the home slate. Pennants commemorating the centennial season will be Nov. 2 at Davidson* Noon given away to fans attending Saturday’s game. Nov. 9 Morehead State* 1 p.m. Nov. 16 at Butler* 11 a.m. Valpo in Home Openers: Valpo has won a home opener once since 2008, beating Nov. 23 Marist* 1 p.m. Trinity International 49-24 in 2016. A year ago, the first Brown Field game of the season resulted in a 34-20 loss to Truman State. Landon Fox will look to become the first Valpo head coach to win the first home game of his tenure since Bill Koch * - Pioneer Football League game coached Valpo to a 42-0 win over Denison on Sept. 17, 1977. After kicking off the All home games at Brown Field season in August for the first time since 2014, Valpo enjoyed a bye week following a Thursday opener. This marks the longest layoff between the first and second games of the season in the 100-year history of Valpo football. Pioneer Football League Strong Slate: This week will continue a challenging 2019 schedule for the Valpo Standings football team. This is the second game in a season-opening stretch of nine straight against teams that finished with a winning record in 2018. PFL Overall Team W-L Pct. W-L Pct. Behind the Line: The Valpo defense racked up seven tackles for loss in the season Davidson 0-0 --- 2-0 1.000 opener at Eastern Kentucky on Aug. 29. Valpo had two sacks against the Colonels, Dayton 0-0 --- 1-0 1.000 compared to a year ago when the team entered the seventh game of the season with two sacks and two years ago when the second sack of the season came in the Stetson 0-0 --- 1-0 1.000 ninth game. The seven tackles for loss against the Colonels were the second most Morehead State 0-0 --- 1-1 .500 Valpo has had in a game since the 2016 campaign behind eight last year at Marist. Butler 0-0 --- 1-1 .500 Marist 0-0 --- 0-1 .000 Interception Insight: Valpo sophomore Michael Scarsella and fifth-year senior Jacksonville 0-0 --- 0-1 .000 Matthew Messler both made their first career interception in Valpo’s season opener Valparaiso 0-0 --- 0-1 .000 at Eastern Kentucky. Coincidentally, Messler and Scarsella’s first career picks also San Diego 0-0 --- 0-2 .000 came in the same game, last season’s home victory over Butler. Drake 0-0 --- 0-2 .000 Top Tackler: Jaxon Peifer has enjoyed a strong start to his sophomore season, lead- ing the team with 10 tackles (six solos) in his first career start at Eastern Kentucky. His efforts allowed him to earn the team’s Defensive Player of the Week honor in addition to being named the Indiana National Guard Player of the Game by Valpo Athletics. One game into the season, Peifer has already exceeded his season tackle total from a year ago. @ValpoUFootball Centennial Season: In addition to marking the start of a new head coaching tenure, 2019 is a significant season for Valpo football as the program is set to celebrate its 100-year history over the course of the campaign. Valpo Athletics is set to recognize and celebrate individuals and teams from select eras at four games this Valpo season. The program has won 11 conference championships, including six in the Indiana Collegiate Conference and two in the Pioneer Football League. It’s also the 50th anniversary of the 1969 team that won an ICC crown, an anniversary that Football will be celebrated at this year’s Homecoming game. In addition, Valpo will retire 2019 Football Game Notes Contact: BRANDON VICKREY Office: 219.464.5396 Valpo Sports Media Relations [email protected] www.valpoathletics.com Athletics-Recreation Center 1009 Union Street Valparaiso IN 46383 the numbers of two University legends at the Homecoming game on Sept. 28 at Brown Field. Garry Puetz ’73 and Fuzzy Thurston ’56 (posthumous) will become Around the PFL the first players in program history to have their numbers retired. The use of No. 80 Saturday, Sept. 7 will be discontinued in honor of Thurston, while No. 71 will be retired for Puetz. Georgetown 45, Marist 3 Both were All-Americans in college and went on to win Super Bowl rings in the NFL – Puetz with Washington in 1982 and Thurston with the Green Bay Packers Dayton 42, Indiana State 35 in the first two Super Bowls, his fifth and sixth NFL Championships. UC Davis 38, San Diego 35 Stetson 58, Louisiana College 13 Honoring an Era: The early days of Valpo football will be in the spotlight at the Butler 30, Indiana Wesleyan 27 home opener as the athletic department celebrates the 1919-1949 teams. George Davidson 45, Virginia Lynchburg 7 Keogan led the first team on record to a 5-3 mark in 1919. Valpo quickly elevated Truman State 10, Drake 7 to a championship level of success, winning the Western Interstate Conference in Illinois State 42, Morehead State 14 1923. J.M. Christiansen led the team to a combined 22-2 record from 1931-1933. Valpo won the Indiana Intercollegiate Conference during the 1932 season, going a Saturday, Sept. 14 perfect 7-0. The program was discontinued in 1943 and 1944 due to World War II, Stetson at Marist, 11 a.m. then Loren Ellis coached Valpo to a 6-1 mark as the team resumed play in the Indiana Central Connecticut at Valpo, 1 p.m. Intercollegiate Conference championship season of 1945. Emory G. Bauer took over in 1946 and started to build toward the most successful era in program history. Drake at South Dakota State, 1 p.m. Dayton at Robert Morris, 2 p.m. Special Guest: As part of the celebration of the 1919-1949 Valpo football seasons, Kentucky Christian at Morehead State, 3 p.m. the program will welcome 94-year-old lifelong Valparaiso resident Donald Findling Taylor at Butler, 5 p.m. for this week’s game against Central Connecticut. He will handle the coin toss prior West Virginia Wesleyan at Davidson, 6 p.m. to the game. He graduated from Valparaiso High School in 1943 and is a veteran, Jacksonville at Presbyterian College, 6 p.m. having served in World War II for three years in both Europe and Japan and achieved the rank of army staff sergeant. He was recruited by Emory Bauer and played center Saturday, Sept. 21 on the 1947 and 1948 teams before playing quarterback in 1949, a year where Val- Cornell at Marist, 11 a.m. po defeated Wittenberg 20-0 in the Lutheran Bowl in Cleveland. Findling worked Dartmouth at Jacksonville, Noon for the University for much of his career and retired as chief accountant after 26 Duquesne at Dayton, Noon years at Valpo. As a Lions Club volunteer, he and his fellow Lions were associated with the Valpo football team for nearly 10 years in the 1970s and 1980s doing the Harvard at San Diego, 3 p.m. chains. Married for nearly 60 years, he and his wife Betty had three children and Butler at Princeton, 4 p.m. two grandchildren and he remains active as a fifth-generation Valpo resident. Western New England at Stetson, 5 p.m. Davidson at Campbell, 5 p.m. Head Coach Landon Fox: After spending the last 11 seasons as the defensive co- Morehead State at Murray State, 6 p.m. ordinator and secondary coach at the University of Dayton, the new man in charge Valpo at Truman State, 7 p.m. of the Valpo football program is no stranger to the Pioneer Football League. Landon Fox’s teams held opponents to an average of 19 points per game during his time as (all times Central) the defensive coordinator at Dayton. He helped the Flyers finish with 10 winning seasons in his 11 years on staff and guided a defensive backfield that produced one All-American, four Academic All-Americans, two PFL Special Teams Players of the Year and three corners who were invited to NFL Rookie Minicamp. Prior to joining Dayton’s staff, Fox served as the linebackers coach and special teams coor- dinator at Wayne State University in Detroit from 2005-2007. He also spent time as Media Relations Information a defensive graduate assistant at Ball State University (2004), Dayton (2002-2003) Requests to cover home football games should be made through and Lakeland College (2001).