John Kipper, Staff Writer

In the final game of the season, the football team lost 27-9 to Hamline University (1-9, 1-7), losing “the Hammer” in the trophy game. The team finished the season with an overall record of 2-8 (0-8), failing to win a conference game for the first time in 20 years. The MIAC featured three nationally ranked teams this year: perennial national contenders St. Johns (No. 4), St. Thomas (No. 9) and Bethel (22), so the Auggie’s faced an uphill battle all year.

It has been a long season with the struggles beginning after quarterback Quinn Frisell went down for the season back in September. Following Frisell’s injury, the offense was never able to recover, struggling both in the air and on the ground. These struggles were most prevalent in the red zone, where the team was only able to capitalize on 13 of their 21 trips (62%). The run game was almost non-existent the entire season, mustering only one rushing touchdown post-Frisell.

Defensively, the team had a difficult time consistently stopping the run and was virtually unable to stop teams in the air. One area the team excelled though was forcing fumbles. Throughout the season, the team forced 14, recovering 12 of them, which ranked second in the MIAC. One bright spot to come of this season was senior linebacker Mustafa Adam, who is a nominee for the Mayo Clinic Comeback Player of the Year after defeating cancer for the third time is his life.

Moving forward, the team will seemingly get a lot younger next year, which will likely have a majority of first-years and sophomores on the roster. Look for the Auggies to embrace the youth movement and improve in the years to come.

This article was originally published in the Nov. 16, 2018 issue.