Box Score
LINCOLN, NEB. -- Third-ranked Morningside College had an offensive explosion putting up 729 yards of total offense as the Mustangs ran past Nebraska Wesleyan, 83-19, in the football home opener for the Prairie Wolves on Saturday (Sept. 13) at Abel Stadium.

NWU, which has faced top 10 teams in their first two games, falls to 0-2 to start the year while the Mustangs improve to 2-0.

It looked good for the Prairie Wolves early as NWU scored on their opening offensive drive.  After a big kick return to the 42-yard line, the Prairie Wolves marched 58 yards with Joel Wiedel capping the drive with 2-yard TD run giving NWU their first TD of the season.

From there it was all Morningside as they showed why they have one of the premier offensive attack's in the entire country.  The Mustangs scored touchdowns on eight of their next nine offensive possessions as they built up a 56-12 lead at halftime.

Not only was the Morningside offense clicking on all cylinders, but the NWU offense was hurting themselves with mistakes.  A total of five snaps from center were bad, including a snap over the quarterback's head through the endzone to give Morningside two points on a safety.  NWU also fumbled a kick return and threw an interception to set up two of the Mustangs scores.

A big part of the offense was the combination of Ryan Kasdorf to Devin Thomas.  Thomas caught nine passes for 166 yards with three TDs all in the first half, while Brandon Wegher rushed for 182 yards and three TDs also in the first half.

NWU got their other touchdown in the first half relying on the connection between Tyler Francis and Connor Zumpfe.  The tandem connected four times on one drive capped by a 8-yard touchdown pass.

The Mustangs scored four more touchdowns in the second half to account for the 83 points. The 83 points for Morningside were the most allowed by a NWU team under Coach Keller and the most given up since the 1917 season (Nebraska defeated NWU 100-0).

Nebraska Wesleyan's second half touchdown came on a 67-yard screen pass from Francis to Joey Jones.  The Prairie Wolves finished with 262 yards of offense, 248 in the air and 14 on the ground.  Francis was 16-27 for 248 yards with two touchdowns to highlight the offensive numbers, with Zumpfe recording seven catches for 102 yards.

Kasdorf finished 19-23 for 283 yards with four touchdowns for Morningside.  The Mustangs had 430 rushing yards on 65 carries.  Morningside averaged 7.8 yards per play on offense.

Riley Shoemaker had 19 total tackles to lead the Prairie Wolves in his first career start.  Shoemaker had 12 solo stops on the day.