CWU football will play the Western Oregon (WOU) Wolves on Oct. 14  in Monmouth, Oregon. This will be the second time the Wildcats face the Wolves this season.

The Wildcats will be looking to claim their seventh win for the season. After defeating Humboldt State University on Oct. 7, the Wildcats lead the GNAC with a 4-0 record, and have an overall record of 6-0.

Quarterback Jojo Hillel said the team will take note of their strengths and weaknesses from their last game against Humboldt.

“Those guys were a great opponent,” Hillel said. “Now we’ve just got to keep what we have rolling. Our defense were great against a really good offense, so we’re hoping to keep that going into next week.”

Hillel said he wasn’t worried about losing home-field advantage in the game this weekend.

“We’re just going to do what we do,” Hillel said. “The home-field advantage, it plays a small role. We’re just going to play our game and hopefully come out with a win.”

Historically, the Wildcats have fared well against WOU. On Sept. 9, the Wildcats defeated the Wolves 30-23. Similarly, in 2016, the Wildcats came away with two wins, resulting in final scores of 41-20 on Sept. 10 and 35-0 on Oct. 15.

Quarterback and captain of CWU’s football team, Reilly Hennessey, said the team would go back and look at their past game against WOU in preparation for the upcoming game.

“We’re always trying to think about what they’re thinking and how they’re going to watch our previous game again and try and do something different,” Hennessey said. “We always expect a change up whenever we’re playing someone twice. We’re just going to have to get in there, listen to our coaches and know that they’ll have a good game plan for us.”

To date, the Wildcats and the Wolves have both played  Humboldt State University, Azusa Pacific University and Simon Fraser University (SFU). In all three games the Wildcats came away with wins, while the Wolves lost to Humboldt and Azusa.

On Oct. 7, the Wolves defeated SFU in a record-breaking final score of 82-21. The 82 points broke a WOU NCAA DII record, with the previous high a 66-point output back in 2012. CWU performed similarly in their game against SFU, with a final score of 62-0.

The Wildcats will pack their bags and travel to WOU for their game this weekend. Hennessey said he enjoyed the travelling aspect that came with playing intercollegiate football.  

“I love walking into other people’s stadiums and going and playing football so it really isn’t a huge deal to me,” Hennessey said. “It will be exciting to take a bus trip and go play football again.”