ABILENE, Texas - After an 0-4 start in 2009, McMurry strung together four consecutive wins in the middle of the season and finished the year 4-6 with a 4-4 mark in the American Southwest Conference. All this came after an 0-10 season in 2008. Saturday, McMurry might as well look in the mirror for its opponent as Texas Lutheran shares a familiar position with last season's McMurry team.

The Bulldogs (3-2, 2-1) are coming off an 0-10 season from a year ago, but like Hal Mumme did for McMurry in 2009, first-year head coach Danny Padron is working to overhaul the TLU program in his first season. McMurry (4-2, 2-2) is looking to build off its fifth-place finish from 2009 and take the next step into the upper tier of the league.

Something will have to give Saturday at 2 p.m. at McMurry's Wilford Moore Stadium in front of a Homecoming crowd.

“There the same team as us last year. They're going through the same thing now with a new staff, but I think it's going to be a lot easier for us up because it's Homecoming,” said sophomore cornerback and return specialist D.J. Baiza. “So we've just got to get after them, and we're treating every game like it's the playoffs.”

It's hard for fans to expect much from a team that went 0-10 the previous season, but TLU has proven that it's a different bunch from 2009. The Bulldogs have ASC wins over East Texas Baptist and Sul Ross State, and they are coming off an impressive 42-14 non-conference victory over Trinity, a program that was in the NCAA playoffs in 2008.

“They had a big win over Trinity last week, and Trinity's a well-respected program,” said McMurry head coach Hal Mumme. “I think coach Padron's a little bit like we were last year in that he's turned them around, and they're kind of a hot team right now so it'll be a real challenge for us.”

Saturday's matchup may be a head-scratcher for fans of the ASC wanting to make a prediction. After all, TLU lost to Howard Payne Sept. 25, a team McMurry beat handily 51-19 Oct. 2. However, the Bulldogs defeated ETBU 17-14 Sept. 18, a team McMurry lost to 23-21 Sept. 25.

Statistics show two of the better defenses in the ASC with McMurry ranking first and second respectively in total defense and scoring defense. Texas Lutheran on the other hand ranks third in both categories. McMurry is allowing only 231.5 yards per game and 17.2 points per game to its opponents while TLU allows only 19.6 points per contest and 359.8 yards per game to its opposition.

TLU ranks No. 7 in both rushing and passing offense. While McMurry is last in the league in rushing offense, it boasts the No. 1 passing offense as quarterback Jake Mullin has led McMurry to an average of 382.7 yards per game through the air.

However, Mumme said that the X factory Saturday will be the Homecoming crowd.

“Homecoming is huge. This is probably the best Homecoming of all the colleges that I've coached at,” he said. “I've never seen a Homecoming like they do here. We know how to do Homecoming better than anybody around and of course the last part of that is us winning the game so there's kind of some pressure on everybody to their jobs and make it all finish right.”