Wayland Baptist football team travels to Colorado for opener

Butch Henderson admitted it. A year ago when the Wayland
Baptist Pioneers officially kicked off their first football season in 72 years
against Adams State University, the NCAA Division II Grizzlies manhandled his
young NAIA team.

"Adams State was the most physical team we played all year,"
the WBU head coach said in looking back on the game that ended with Adams State
winning with ease, 55-7. "After we played them we became a lot more physical."

Henderson is intent on the Pioneers not being manhandled by
Adams State again when Wayland opens the 2013 season at 8 p.m. Friday in
Alamosa, Colo. (For information on tracking the game online, go to www.wbuathletics.com.)

"The idea we approached this week with was ‘Meet the
Challenge,'" Henderson said. "Our challenge this week isin new, and I feel good about where we are."

While Henderson feels confident in his team's preparation, he's
absolutely sure the Pioneers are ready to take the field against their first
opponent.

"They are really ready to play against somebody else," he
said. "We spent four weeks in the spring and four weeks in the fall going
against ourselves, so they're really ready to play against somebody other than
their teammates. They're also ready to get into a playing routine where you
work hard early in the week and taper down (as game day draws closer). For the
past month there's been no tapering down."

Part of the Pioneers' hard work the past few weeks has been
a series of intrasquad scrimmages, during which Henderson came away impressed.

"They went real
well," he said of the scrimmages. "They gave us