• Chapman football closes out the 2017 regular season when it hosts Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Saturday at 7 p.m. The Panthers' final regular season game was cancelled when Occidental cancelled the remainder of its season.

 

• However, the season will extend deeper into November as the Panthers clinched at least a share of the title and the SCIAC's automatic qualifier into the NCAA Division III Football Championship with last week's 46-38 win over Cal Lutheran.

 

• The Panthers' offense has exploded over their five-week winning streak. Chapman has scored at least 38 points in every SCIAC game and leads the conference with an average of 43.2 points per game. Last week, the Panthers put up a season-high 46 points to clinch the SCIAC crown. Chapman's average of 524.8 yards of total offense per game is also the highest in the conference.

 

• Defensively, the Panthers have been getting the push up front in getting in the backfield. The Panthers' 19 sacks this year in SCIAC games are the most in the conference with La Verne's 12 ranking second. The Panthers have accumulated 12 sacks and 22 tackles for loss in the past three weeks, resulting in a loss of over 100 yards for opposing offenses.

 

• Senior Andrew Dieken has led the push up front with four sacks this season – all in conference games. That total leads the SCIAC. In fact, the Panthers own the top-3 spots on the SCIAC leaderboard for sacks with Dieken's four followed by three sacks each from sophomore Jonathan Bunnel and junior Daveed Carter. CMS and Whittier have just three sacks as a team in four conference games. Dieken, Carter and Bunnel have totaled 10 combined sacks, which would currently rank fourth in the conference.

 

• Senior Ricky Bautista is on pace to leave his name all over the Panthers' record book. He is the only Panther in the 24-year history of the program to throw for six TDs in a game – and he's done it twice. Last week, he threw his 22nd touchdown of the season and surpassed Stanley Villanueva's 1999 total of 21. He needs just four more TDs to break the career touchdown record and 263 yards to break the school record for yards in a season. He is also on pace to shatter season and career records for passing efficiency and yards per game.

 

• Tune into the NCAA selection show on Sunday, Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. on NCAA.com.