While watching game film and doing research, the similarities between their respective football teams aren't lost on Dickinson State coach Hank Biesiot and Wisconsin-Whitewater coach Lance Leipold.
Both like gearing their offenses around the running game in the hopes of opening up an aerial attack, and both are the caretakers of championship programs with reputations that precede them.
"That makes it very intriguing," said Leipold, who begins his third season as Whitewater's head coach Saturday when it plays DSU at noon at the Badlands Activities Center.
"What I've seen (in DSU) is a well-coached football team who does a lot of things very well but they're not overly complicated with what they do."
It's just that, well, everything that DSU does, Whitewater seems to do it bigger and better.
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The Warhawks have played in the past four NCAA Division III national championship games and won the title in 2007 -- Leipold's first year. Because they return nearly everyone from last year, they enter this season as the consensus No. 2-ranked team in D-III, behind only defending national champion Mount Union, who is the holdover No. 1 spot.
Much of what Whitewater does offensively bares similarities to the 15th-ranked Blue Hawks' because it starts with a power-back formation and develops from there. Still, Whitewater's offense has been much more effective than DSU's in recent years.
The Warhawks averaged 411 total yards and 34.5 points per game last season in what amounted to be a balanced scheme when the dust settled.
Underclassmen running backs Levell Coppage and Antwan Anderson averaged 199 of the team's 215 rushing yards while quarterback Jeff Donovan, now a senior, threw for 191 yards and one touchdown per game.
"(Running the ball) is very important to get us going, but we truly believe in balance," Leipold said.
Biesiot expects a much different game that last Saturday, when Rocky Mountain College quarterback Kasey Peters threw the ball 42 times while compiling 421 yards and four touchdowns.
While DSU believes its defense is better suited to face a balanced offense than a team that runs the spread, Biesiot said DSU's players must realize that Whitewater is capable of controlling the pace of the game with its offense and find ways to change that.
"There's no doubt about it, this team can hurt you in so many ways," Biesiot said. "They run the ball much different and a lot more than the team we just played. It'll probably be a more physical-type contest that way because they like to run it or pound it."
