RIPON, Wis. - As the football season moves along, each week becomes bigger and more important than the previous week. This week's game is no different as the Red Hawks make the trip to Galesburg to face Knox College in their first conference road game of the season.

Last year, Ripon didn't fare well on the road, winning just one of their four games away from Ingalls Field. That one win came in the final game of the regular season, a 35-19 victory over Knox. Even though Ripon leads the all-time series 35-5, it is still one of the longer trips in the conference, will try not to let that affect them.

The long trip can affect you if you let it, but we try to stay very focused on the game at hand," said head football coach Ron Ernst. "We generally play pretty well down there, so hopefully we can keep that trend going."

In order for the Red Hawks to compete for a conference title in 2006, that trend has to continue, as every game on the road is a big one.

"You have to win on the road because the conference champion usually ends up with zero or one loss," Ernst said. "This is definately a game that we're capable of winning, but it's also a game we're capable of losing, so we've got to go down there and stay focused."

Each team enters the game with identical 1-1 records, but Ripon is ahead of Knox in the conference standings after winning their conference opener last week, while the Prairie Fire lost theirs. With both teams jockeying for early season position in the Midwest Conference standings, this game should be hard fought to the end.

"Knox is a well coached team that is always in the right spot and so far this season, they've been running their offense extremely well," said head football coach Ron Ernst.

If anyone knows how well Knox is running their offense, it should be Ernst and his team. The Prairie Fire are in the first year of their three back, running style offense that rarely sees the ball put in the air. This is the same offense that Ernst's team has run for three full years. That alone can only help Ripon as they prepare for a Knox team that ranks first in the MWC in rushing.

"When we come into practice each night, we are able to run against our own offense," Ernst said. "We've been practicing against it for three or four weeks already, so we've got a decent idea of what they're going to do. It's very tough to stop, so we've got to make plays in order to win the game."