ESU broadcast area: WQMY (Wilkes-Barre) - channel 16 on Blue Ridge standard and digital cable

INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA has notified East Stroudsburg University and Slippery Rock University that their football game at Slippery Rock on September 12 has been selected as the NCAA Division II Showcase Game of the Week.
 
Kickoff has been moved back an hour to 7 p.m. to accommodate a live national television broadcast that will be produced by the American Sports Network.
 
The NCAA and the American Sports Network will select one Division II football game in each of the 11 weeks of the 2015 regular season to serve as its featured game. The September 12 contest will be the second featured game of the year.
 
The game will be offered to all networks owned by Sinclair Broadcasting and will also be streamed nationwide on ncaa.com. The complete list of channels that pick up the game will be announced on the Monday before the game.
 
The game will highlight two of Division II's top coaches in ESU's Denny Douds and Slippery Rock's George Mihalik. Both rank in the top four among all active DII coaches in career wins, and are Slippery Rock graduates.

ESU was tied for third in the PSAC East preseason poll released Monday, while Slippery Rock is picked second in the PSAC West.

Douds (SRU '63) enters his 42nd season as head coach at ESU and 50th year at ESU overall, including eight seasons as an assistant coach from 1966-73. He holds the PSAC career record with 250 wins, ranking third among active NCAA coaches, third in NCAA Division II history and 20th in NCAA history entering the 2015 season. As a player, Douds was a standout lineman for Slippery Rock as a right guard on offense and nose tackle on defense. He was named All-Conference, All-State and NAIA All-America and was Slippery Rock's outstanding senior athlete in 1962-63.

Mihalik (SRU '74) enters his 28th season as the head coach at The Rock and his 40th overall season as a member of the coaching staff. He was the starting quarterback for the PSAC championship teams in 1972 and 1973 and has been involved in SRU football for 43 of the last 44 years. The head coach since 1988, Mihalik ranks fourth on the all-time wins list in the PSAC and ranks fourth among all active DII head coaches with 185 wins.
 
The game will also feature the first meeting of 2014 Harlon Hill candidates during the 2015 season in East Stroudsburg redshirt senior quarterback Matt Soltes and Slippery Rock junior running back Shamar Greene. It will be one of only five scheduled Division II games in 2015 to feature a head-to-head match-up of returning Harlon Hill candidates.
 
Soltes, a two-time Harlon Hill candidate as a sophomore and junior, enters his senior year averaging 342.3 yards of total offense per game, fourth in DII history. He leads active DII quarterbacks in total offense per game and pass efficiency (163.7) and has five career games with 500 yards of total offense, tied for the most in DII history. He has 85 career touchdown passes, including 64 TD against just 13 interceptions over the last two years.
 
Greene rushed for the second-most yards in a single season in Slippery Rock program history last fall with 1,482 yards, and was the first SRU running back since 2010 to eclipse 1,000 yards in a season. He averaged 123.5 yards per game and 6.1 yards per carry in 2014.


2015 Meetings of 2014 Harlon Hill candidates

Sept. 12 - East Stroudsburg (QB Matt Soltes) at Slippery Rock (RB Shamar Greene)
Sept. 26 - Albany State (RB Jarvis Small) at Delta State (QB Tyler Sullivan)
Sept. 26 - Angelo State (QB Kyle Washington) at West Texas A&M (RB Geremy Aldridge-Mitchell)
Oct. 31 - Ferris State (QB Jason Vander Laan*) at Lake Erie (RB Anthony Bilal)
Nov. 7 - Minn.-Mankato (DE Joshua Gordon) at Sioux Falls (QB Luke Papilion)

* Vander Laan - 2014 Harlon Hill recipient


About the American Sports Network
 
American Sports Network is a programming initiative of Sinclair Networks Group, LLC, a division of Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. ASN produced more than 250 college sports games during the 2014-2015 academic year featuring distinguished NCAA Division I conferences including the Atlantic 10 Conference, Big South Conference, Big 10 Conference, the Colonial Athletic Association, Conference USA, Horizon League, Ivy League, Ohio Valley Conference, the Patriot League, Southern Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference. In addition to its college initiative, ASN produces local high school sports under the "Thursday Night Lights" and "Friday Night Rivals" brands. Visit ASN's website www.americansportsnet.com.
 
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) is one of the largest and most diversified television broadcasting companies in the country. Sinclair owns and operates, programs or provides sales services to 161 television stations in 79 markets. Sinclair Networks Group, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. For more information on Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., visit www.sbgi.net.