The #15-Ranked Wheaton College Football Team opens 2012 season in historic weeknight game

Wheaton, Ill. – The Wheaton College football team will open its season at home on Thursday August 30 against DuPage County rival Benedictine University at 7 PM. The season opener will be Wheaton’s first-ever weeknight home game, marking the first athletic event for Thunder Athletics for the 2012-13 season. Next week’s meeting will mark the first time Wheaton has faced the Benedictine since the 1985.

  Wheaton is ranked 15th in the 2012 D3football.com Preseason poll. The Thunder enters the season off an 8-2 campaign in 2011, finishing the year ranked 22nd in the D3Football.com poll of the year. Wheaton head coach Mike Swider says of the upcoming season, “There is a lot to be excited about. There always is at Wheaton. I think the thing that helps any football program is expectation and there will always be an expectation to do well, to fight for a conference title and be in the playoffs at Wheaton. That is who we are and is our identity. That is a good thing.” Swider concludes, “There are a lot of teams right now that don’t expect that. When you expect to win, fight for championships and be in the playoffs, it really ratchets up all of your efforts and I think that expectation for us will be there again this year and be a positive thing.”

In Thursday’s game, Wheaton will face a Benedictine team that has been picked as the preseason favorite in the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) preseason Coaches Poll. The Eagles won the NAC Championship in 2011 and earned the conference’s automatic bid to the 2012 NCAA-III Playoffs, falling to University of Mount Union in the opening round.