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   FLORENCE, Ala. -- The 2018 University of North Alabama football team has already made history this season as the first Lion squad to compete on the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level.
    The Lions are also guaranteed to have no worse than a .500 season in their first season in the FCS, with a 5-3 record and two games yet to play.
    So while the 2018 Lions look ahead to Saturday's game with Shorter at 1:30 at Braly Stadium with a chance to extend their winning streak to three games, the team and University will also look back at previous history makers at the school as they honor the school's 1968 football team.
    When Leonard "Rabbit" Thomas and Bobby Joe Pride took the field for the Lions on Sept. 21, 1968 against Central Arkansas, they broke the color barrier in the state and became the first African Americans to play in a collegiate football game for a predominantly white college in Alabama.
    Many of the former players from that team, including Thomas and Pride, will be at Braly Stadium Saturday to not only celebrate the 50th Anniversary of that milestone but to also cheer on the current Lions as they also make history.
    For the 2018 Lions, they hope to extend the momentum they have built in back-to-back wins over Mississippi College and Jackson State into the final two weekends of the season.
    The first order of business is to deal with a winless Shorter team that brings an 0-9 record and an overall 37-game losing streak to Braly Stadium. Not only have the Hawks not won a game since October 3, 2015, but they also have an 0-6 all-time record against UNA and have been outscored  249-14 in those six previous games.
    In the last two meetings, UNA has shutout Shorter 45-0 and 48-0 and this year's North Alabama defense has turned in two of its best performances of the season in its last two outings.
    Shorter's offense has struggled all season, scoring just 13.8 points per game.  The Hawks average just 68.6 yards rushing and 270.1 total yards.
    Quarterback Tyler Pullum has accounted for the majority of that offense with 1,649 yards and 11 touchdowns passing.
    For its part, UNA enters the game averaging 23.4 points and 370 total yards per game.
    Those numbers have come in part, due to offensive efficiency in hanging onto the football.
    The Lions have committed just seven turnovers through eight games this season.
    One record to watch belongs to UNA junior quarterback Christian Lopez.
    Lopez has thrown a school record 214 consecutive passes without an interception this season. Lopez threw seven passes at Southern Utah in the season-opener before being picked off on UNA's second possession of the season. He has not thrown an interception since. He threw 35 more passes in that game without a pickoff and has thrown another 179 in the Lions last seven games.
    The previous UNA record for consecutive passes without an interception was 168 by Will Hall in 2002.
    North Alabama also brings a string of having scored on its opening possession in each of its last three games into today's contest. In all, the Lions have scored on their first possession in five of their eight games in 2018.