Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com

Five items on the New Hampshire football landscape:

Note: The latest thread on the New Hampshire Football Report message board discusses this weekend's game between Exeter and Bishop Guertin.

1. Chad Kackert

Kackert rushed for 176 yards and two touchdowns during UNH's 48-21 triumph over Northeastern on Saturday. Kackert has run for 2,097 yards in a UNH uniform, and is one of eight UNH players with at least 2,000 career rushing yards.

Kackert is currently eighth on UNH's career rushing list, 140 yards behind Avrom Smith (1991-94), who is in the seventh position

"Strong kid," UNH coach Sean McDonnell said. "A little bag of nails. He's pretty tough. He ran through some things. He's done it his whole career that way. Very quick. I thought he accelerated through holes and when he saw tackles I thought he accelerated through them. Probably his best game of the year for us."

2. Big-game hunting

Here are some of the key non-playoff NHIAA games that will be played this weekend:

• Manchester Central at Salem (Central secures a Division I playoff berth with a victory).
• Exeter at Bishop Guertin (Both teams are unbeaten. Winner earns the No. 1 seed in Division II).
• Timberlane at Alvirne (Winner advances to the Division II semifinals. Loser's season is over).

3. Shrine talk 

Since McDonnell made a pitch to bring the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl to UNH (the 2010 game will be played a Windsor (Vt.) High School), it's interesting to note that the Massachusetts Shriners Game may move to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. The Boston Globe reported last week that the deal should be finalized soon. The game has been played at Bentley College since 2001.

4. Michael Pierce

Pierce, St. Anselm's freshman quarterback, has completed 73 of 137 passes for 787 yards and six touchdowns in his team's last two games -- losses to Stonehill (31-28) and New Haven (47-43).

The St. Anselm offense is obviously not a bad place to be if you like to throw the football.

5. Oregon 47, USC 20

Here's some video of Chip Kelly's postgame press conference after the Ducks beat the Trojans on Saturday night. 

Kelly was born in Dover and served as UNH's offensive coordinator before he became an assistant coach with the Ducks. The guess here is that he still has more fans in New Hampshire than he does in Oregon.

FYI: Lache Seastrunk, a 5-foot-11, 190-pound running back from Temple, Texas, was among those who took in Oregon's victory Saturday. Seastrunk is No. 20 on the ESPNU 150 list of top recruits in the Class of 2010.