WISE - - After three consecutive road games, UVa-Wise returns home to face Tusculum in a South Atlantic Conference football contest at Carl Smith Stadium Saturday. Both teams are off to slow starts in 2019, the Cavaliers have lost five consecutive games while the Pioneers have dropped back-to-back games. The teams have identical 1-5 records.

Offensive woes have plagued Dane Damron's UVa-Wise squad. The Cavs have scored more than 14 points just once this season and that occurred in a 40-22 win over Chowan in the first game of the season. Last week, the team tallied 112 yards of total offense as Newberry held the ball for nearly 35 minutes in a 30-7 victory.

Tight end Seth Phillips has been a strong point for UVa-Wise. The sophomore leads the team with 15 catches and has made multiple catches in four of the season's first six games. Quarterback Garrett Cropp scored his second rushing touchdown of the season as he came off the bench to take snaps on the goal line while Lendon Redwine made his second straight start behind center.

On defense, redshirt junior Marcus Tarrer is coming off one of the best games of his collegiate career. The defensive back posted a career-high 3.5 tackles for loss as part of an 11-tackle performance. The Richmond, Va. product leads the team and the South Atlantic Conference with 54 tackles. Up front, Rondre Knowles-Tenner and Chavon Fields have been recording sacks from their defensive line positions. Knowles-Tenner leads the team with 4.5 sacks while Fields has posted four sacks this fall.

Several parts of UVa-Wise's special teams unit has performed well. Freshman punter Drew Vermillion is averaging 38.53 yards per punt while junior punt returner Demetrius Mann is averaging 31.88 yards per punt return with two punt return touchdowns to tie the single-season UVa-Wise record. On kick returns, Marquis Hamilton is posting 29.13 yards per return, including a long of 66 yards. AJ Felton Jr leads the nation with three blocked kicks and has tied the single-season school record for blocked kicks.

Like the Cavs, the Pioneers have struggled on offense. Tusculum has eclipsed 21 points just once this season and that took place in the team's lone win, 38-10 at Limestone. Tusculum is coming off a 38-14 loss at No. 8 Lenoir-Rhyne where the team finished with negative five rushing yards and just 11 first downs in the contest. The Pioneers tallied 234 yards of offense and were 2-for-14 on third down conversions.

On defense, Jerry Odom's team has fared much better. Teams are scoring 29.5 points per game on the Pioneers while accumulating just 318.5 yards per game of offense against defensive coordinator Cody Edwards unit. A 2010 graduate of UVa-Wise, Edwards is a Haysi, Va. native and was a member of the Cavalier program during the team's 2007 Mid-South Championship season.  

Special teams wise, Tusculum has one of the nation's top return men in Thurlow Wilkins who is averaging 33.4 yards per return and already has a kickoff return touchdown to his credit.

Saturday's meeting is the 11th all-time between the Cavs and Pioneers on the gridiron. UVa-Wise leads the series 6-to-4; the school's last played in 2016 when the Cavs claimed a 13-10 overtime victory in Greeneville, Tenn.

Next week, UVa-Wise visits nationally ranked Wingate University in a 6 p.m. kickoff while Tusculum returns home to face UNC-Pembroke in a 1:30 p.m. kickoff.