BELTON - An old and often-used statement in coachspeak declares: “Every game is a big game.”

But that’s not always true. And the American Southwest Conference’s most-veteran coaches in charge of the league’s best two programs admitted that the ASC’s most-heated rivalry is indeed unlike any other conference game.

“There’s no question that this week is different than the rest of the regular season,” Mary Hardin-Baylor coach Pete Fredenburg said Monday, just five days before his team squares off with rival Hardin-Simmons on Saturday. “Everybody gets excited about it. It goes by fast, and you have a little anxiety stuck in your stomach all week long.”

The anxiety is a product of a decade-long grudge match in which UMHB holds a 7-5 edge in the series.

Every other ASC matchup pales in comparison.

Since the start of their program in 1998, Fredenburg’s Crusaders have a 65-9 record against other conference opponents. The Cowboys are 69-3 in that same span against the rest of the ASC.

“This week is more fun than the rest in a lot of ways,” HSU coach Jimmie Keeling said by phone from his office in Abilene. “It’s just a different feeling. We like to think that every game is important, but there’s definitely something there with this one.”

The Crusaders have won five straight against the Cowboys - two of which came in the NCAA Division III playoffs - and seven of the last eight installments of the showdown series have gone UMHB’s way.

Every year since the inaugural meeting in 1998, the winner of the rivalry clash has claimed at least a share of the ASC title.

In other words, the conference championship will be on the line when No. 3 UMHB (3-0, 2-0 ASC) and No. 12 HSU (4-0, 2-0) collide at 2 p.m. Saturday at Tiger Field.

“It seems like we’ve played 30 times in the past few years,” Keeling said. “And Mary Hardin-Baylor has certainly got the better of those games.”

Legends of the southwest

Fredenburg and Keeling are the most-tenured coaches in the ASC - success aids longevity - and their winning percentages are head and shoulders, knees and toes above their peers.

In his 11th season at UMHB, Fredenburg has a winning percentage of .769 (90-27). Keeling, in his 19th year at HSU, stands at .773 (153-45).

There are only three other ASC coaches who have won at least half their games: second-year East Texas Baptist coach Mark Sartain (7-6, .539), third-year Louisiana College coach Dennis Dunn (11-11, .500) and first-year Sul Ross State coach Wayne Schroeder (2-2, .500).

Weekly honor

UMHB sophomore kicker Alan Munoz was named as the ASC’s Special Teams Player of the Week. Munoz, the younger brother of former Crusaders kicker Joel Munoz, booted five extra points and a 48-yard field goal in Saturday’s 46-0 win over McMurry.

Rewind

In last week’s win, UMHB’s defense surrendered only 27 total yards. It took a second-half surge just for McMurry to get into positive integers. At halftime, it had accounted for minus-35 yards.

Wondering how a team can travel backward or be pushed back that far during the first 30 minutes of a game?

Of McMurry’s 33 offensive snaps in the first half, 18 of them were for zero or negative yardage, five were punts and one was an interception. That left just nine plays that netted any yards at all - and five of those were for 3 yards or less.

Around the ASC

There were a few things of note in ASC games last Saturday.

n Mississippi College’s Desmond Mays ran for 189 yards and four touchdowns in the Choctaws’ 35-27 loss to HSU. The Cowboys offset Mays with 361 passing yards and three TDs from Justin Feaster.

n Other than the Crusaders and Cowboys, ETBU is the only team with an unblemished ASC record. The Tigers moved to 2-0 in conference with a 26-14 win over a Texas Lutheran team that fell 63-7 to UMHB the week before.

n Howard Payne is the only ASC team yet to score in conference play. The Yellow Jackets were shut out by Sul Ross State 17-0 on Saturday.