Normally, when a football team makes a 12-hour pre-game bus trip, the coach worries about his players’ physical state.

Not Eric Brock, second-year coach at Haskell Indian Nations University. Brock is more concerned about his team’s mental approach to today’s clash with woeful Trinity Bible College.

“You sit up at night wondering how to motivate your players to play a team that just lost 105-0,” Brock said.

That was the hard-to-believe score last Saturday when Trinity Bible College opened its season on the road at Rockford (Ill.) College. Rockford’s 105 points established an NCAA Division III scoring record.

Kickoff will be at 1 p.m. today in Ellendale, N.D.

As Haskell’s players spent most of Friday busing to North Dakota, Brock was preaching pride.

“We don’t want to be the first defense that allows them to score,” he said. “We don’t want to be the first offense that can’t score on them. And we don’t want to make any mistakes.”

Haskell met TBC in Lawrence last season and snapped a 24-game losing streak by romping to a 68-0 victory over the Lions, who only suited 18 players.

First-year coach Rusty Bentley took 26 players to Rockford, but only 17 were cleared to play and six of those 17 suffered injuries during the game. Late in the second half, with only 11 able bodies, Bentley had to use all of them on both offense and defense.

“We were doing everything we could to keep it down,” Rockford coach Mike Hoskins said. “We played everybody on the team. You don’t want to embarrass anybody, but at the same time you have to get your team ready for their upcoming opponents.”

Trinity Bible coach Bentley said the loss had to be put into perspective.

“Our testimony means more than anything,” Bentley said, “and part of that means playing to the best of our abilities. We have to leave it on the field and not have any regrets. We are the smallest Division III team in America, and the kids played their hearts out.”

Haskell will be on the road again next Saturday against a much more formidable foe — Northwestern Oklahoma State, an NAIA powerhouse.