Wheaton, Ill. – The nationally-ranked Thunder football team will open its season on Saturday with a 1 PM kickoff against Bethel University. The tough non-conference matchup will be the first of three non-conference games this season for a Wheaton team that has won 17 consecutive non-conference contests in the regular season. Saturday's matchup will be the first-ever meeting on the gridiron between Wheaton and Bethel. The two teams will face each other again next season at Bethel on September 12, 2009.

Both teams will enter the game ranked in this week's D3football.com Top-25 poll. Bethel (1-0), coming off of a 38-10 win last week against Concordia (Wis.) at home in its season-opener, is ranked fifth. Wheaton is ranked 17th in the same poll. Wheaton has been in the rankings at least once for each of the six years that D3football.com has had its Top-25 poll.

Thunder head coach Mike Swider opens his 12th season at the helm of his alma mater with a career record of 96-29. He is tied for seventh among active Division III head coaches with his 76.8% career winning percentage, a mark that is also 18th among active NCAA head coaches at all levels.

Saturday's game will be the first of regular season home games for the Thunder this year. Wheaton has enjoyed the comforts of playing at McCully Stadium in recent years. The Thunder has posted a 32-2 record at home since the start of the 2002 season, winning 94.1% of the games it has played at McCully Stadium in that time.

At halftime of Saturday's game there will be a special ceremony recognizing the 1958 Wheaton football team that posted a perfect 8-0 record, becoming the first Wheaton football team to have a perfect record. Coach Harve Chrouser's team was 7-0 in the College Conference of Illinois (CCI) to win Wheaton's eighth league championship.

Fans that cannot make it to Saturday's game will still be able to follow the contest on their computer. WETN will have live streaming audio and video of the game online at www.wetn.org. Live statistics will also be available online at this LINK. Fans can also sign up for our text message service (standard rates apply) to have results sent to your phone following the game and you can also sign up for our free RSS feeds.