SWC75
Bored Historian
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First Round
#1 and two time defending champion Wisconsin Whitewater destroyed Albion 59-0, starting with a three touchdown first quarter outburst by Levell Coppage. They gained 475 yards and were aided by four turnovers.
#2 Mount Union crushed Benedictine 47-7 aided by three scores by Jeremy Murray. They had 444 yards and a 29-8 edge in first downs.
#3 St Thomas (Minnesota) had a similarly easy time against another Minnesota school with the odd name of St. Scholastica, (yes there was one: patron saint of nuns and convulsive children), winning 48-2, thanks to three touchdown runs by Colin Tobin. St. Scholastica only managed 73 yards total offense.
#4 Mary Hardin-Baylor built up a 34-0 lead through three quarters and withstood two late scores to beat #14 Redlands 34-13. They rushed for 336 yards.
#5 Linfield won a 30-27 shoot-out with #8 Cal Lutheran. They were actually outgained 296-444 but got their yards early in building up a 20-3 lead. Josh Kay kicked three field goals for the winners.
#6 North Central rolled over Dubuque 59-13, out-rushing their opponents 411-49. unanswered points broke a 7-7 tie and three fourth quarter scores turned it into a blow-out. The final score was 73 yard run in the last minute of play.
#7 Wesley held on to beat Hobart, 35-28, helped by 72 and 66 yard pass plays to Steve Koudossou.
#9 Wabash easily beat Illinois College 38-20. They had a 38-6 lead going into the final period. They out-rushed their opponent, 266-29.
#10 Salisbury blew by Western New England, 62-24, rushing for 568 yards. Dan Griffin ran for 175 yards and 3 scores on 11 carries. Five different players averaged 12 yards a carry or better.
#11 Delaware Valley did even better, rushing for 602 yards in a 62-10 win over Norwich. Norwich had closed to 10-21 with 43 seconds left in the first half but DV scored 32 seconds later on a 32 yard pass play, then added 34 unanswered points in the second half.
#12 Kean handled Christopher Newport 34-10, despite being out-gained 261-328. The key was 6 takeaways, including 5 interceptions.
#13 Johns Hopkins was upset by St. John Fisher 12-23. A big part of the difference was three field goals by Chad Monehim.
#15 Trinity (Texas) was upset by #19 McMurray 16-25, Am 18-7 lead melted to 18-16 when DJ Baiza returned a punt 52 yards for the clinching score with 5:12 left.
#16 Illinois Weslayan lost to Monmouth 27-33 after having a 17-0 lead. The game ended 17-17 in regulation and went to three overtimes. Both teams scored a touchdown, then both scored a field goal. Trey Yocum scored a TD on a 7 yard run for Monmouth who then kept Weslayan out of the end zone for the win.
#17 Franklin beat #20 Thomas More 24-21 after taking a 17-0 halftime lead. Domonique Hayden scored his second TD for Thomas Moore with 3:38 to get within 3 left but the Saints couldn’t score again.
#25 Centre won a wild one, 51-41 over Hampden-Sydney, making a 20-0 first quarter lead barely stand up. Five different players scored seven TDs for Centre. Kyle Vance, Sean Cavanaugh and Kirk Rohle each scored twice for HS. Centre ran for 302 yards while HS passed for 406.
Second Round
#1 Wisconsin Whitewater took care of Franklin 41-14. Levell Coppage scored three more times in leading the Warhawks to a 28-7 halftime lead. Franklin had -5 yards rushing.
#2 Mount Union advanced with a 30-10 win over #25 Centre. The Purple Raiders opened a 16-0 lead with a second quarter safety. Centre came back to make it 10-16 but an 80 yard third quarter drive made it 23-10. Jason Osterman of Centre dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone and the Colonels missed a field goal. Later they turned the ball over on downs at the MU 14. After a facemask penalty on a punt, Mount Union drove 39 yards for the fourth quarter clincher.
#3 St. Thomas broke open a 10-10 tie with Monmouth with two touchdowns each in the third and fourth quarters to win going away, 38-10. The onslaught began with a 100 yard kick-off return of the second half kick-off by Fritz Waldvogel. St. Thomas out- rushed Monmouth 391-4.
#4 Mary Hardin- Baylor beat #19 McMurry 49-20, breaking open a close game with three fourth quarter scores, including a fumble recovered in the end zone and a 40 yard interception return.
#7 Wesley knocked off #5 Linfield 49-34. It was a game of two halves as Linfield led 27-7 at the half only to see Wesley, (the home team despite the lower ranking), score six unanswered touchdowns. Shane McSweeney threw four TD passes and ran for another score.
#9 Wabash came back from a another three touchdown deficit to top #6 North Central, 29-28. Tyler Burke threw four TD passes and a tipped two point conversion to win it.
The game of the day was #10 Salisbury vs. #12 Kean, a 49-47 three overtime thriller. Salisbury jumped out to a 21-7 lead and held it until Kean tied the game at 34 with 45 seconds left on one of three straight TDs by Darius Kinney. It came down to two point conversions in the third overtime and Salisbury made theirs on a run and Kean didn’t on a pass.
#11 Delaware Valley was upset by St. John Fisher, 27-14 The Cardinals got their second straight win over an unbeaten team despite being out-gained 288-385. They took the lead with a field goal just before the half and added ten second half points for the win. Five takeaways were the key to game.
This weeks games:
Salisbury 11-1 (570-237) at Wisconsin-Whitewater 12-0, (448-138)
Wabash 12-0, (407-148) at Mount Union 12-0, (496-88)
Wesley 11-1, (502-170) at Mary Hardin-Baylor 12-0, (540-197)
St. John Fisher 10-2, (370-223) at St. Thomas 12-0, (476-112)
Comment: It’s the greatest rivalry in sports, probably ever. They call then the “Purple Powers”. For years Mount Union was by far the dominant team in NCAA Division 3, winning 7 national championships in ten years. Could anybody compete with them? Then Wisconsin Whitewater became a second Mount Union, even to the point of having similar uniforms, (when they play each other the only way to tell them apart is by who is wearing the white jerseys). They have played for the last six national championships and the scores, (Mount Union’s score first) have been: 35-28, 35-16, 21-31, 31-26, 28-38, 21-31. That’s three wins each with a combined score of 171-170!!! It seems inevitable that there will be a “rubber match” this year.
Whitewater has won it’s last 42 games and is 97-5 since 2005, with three of the losses being to Mt. Union. (They lost to St. Cloud State 16-26 on 9/15/07 and to Wisconsin-Stevens Point 16-17 on 10/25/08.) Mount Union is 98-4 over the same period with three of the losses coming to Whitewater. (They lost to Ohio Northern 14-21 on 10/22/05.) Since 1990, Coach Larry Kehres is 271-12-1 with 10 national championships. The Purple Raiders broke Oklahoma’s record with a 54 game winning streak from 1996-1999 and then broke it again with a 55 game winning streak from 2000-2003.
You wonder how long they can keep this up- and if it would be good or bad if they did. Augustana won four straight national titles from 1983-86 but from 1987-95 fourteen different schools played for the national title and eight different teams won them. The pleasure of watching a Division 3 national title game is that schools that are normally just scores in the Sunday paper get to be on national TV and we get a chance to see what they look like and how they play. I’d love to see Carroll, who has won 6 NAIA titles since 2002 or Northwest Missouri, who’s played for the Division 2 title 7 times since 1998 and won 3 or Grand Valley State, who’s played for 6 D2 titles since 2001 and won 4, get a shot at these two in a combined Division 3. Nobody else seems able to stop them from playing each other for the title every year. I’m kind of hoping for the rubber match but also to see a couple of other teams playing for the title next year.
On the other end of the scale, St. John Fisher lost to Hobart 20-56 and Salisbury 21-41 but managed to make the tournament and has pulled off two upsets over previously undefeated teams to get to the quarterfinals. Salisbury’s only loss was to Wesley, 14-23. Wesley’s only loss was to Kean, 28-31.
UPDATE:
Levell Coppage ran for 213 yards and 4 touchdowns as top ranked and two time defending champion Wisconsin-Whitewater beat Salisbury, 34-14. He’s now the second leading rusher in NCAA history with 7,594 yards.
Mount Union, coached by Larry Kehres, beat Wabash, coached by his nephew, Erik Raeburn, 20-8 holding the Little Giants to 194 yards total offense. Jeremy Murray ran for 152 yards and two scores and Nick Driscoll blocked a punt and recovered a muffed punt return for the Purple Raiders.
In a battle of saints. St. Thomas ended St. John Fisher’s Cinderella run with a convincing 45-10 verdict. The Tommies outgained the Cardinals 408-133 and got an 85 yard kickoff return for a score and led 35-10 by halftime.
Wesley upset Mary Hardin-Baylor 27-24, building up a 21-3 halftime lead and withstanding a 21 point fourth quarter by the host team, who failed on a fourth and three pass at the Wesley 41 yard line in their last possession. Shane McSweeney threw for 253 yards and 4 scores for the winners.
The Semi-Finals:
#3 St. Thomas 13-0 (521-122) at #1 Wisconsin Whitewater 13-0 (482-152)
#7 Wesley 12-1 (529-194) at #2 Mount Union 13-0 (516-96)
Comment: Will it be the “Purple Powers” for the national championship for a seventh straight year? St/ Thomas Coach Glen Caruso, (and Ithaca graduate) said that Whitewater and Mount Union are “the standard of excellence in our division” but that ”We’ll get their best and they’ll get ours”.
FURTHER UPDATE: Yes, it will be the “rubber match” of the “Purple Powers“, the first true rubber match because the pattern of the last six title games: MU, MU, WW, MU, WW, WW, is such that they were never tied until now. Mount Union, (419-71) had an easier time getting through the regular season than Whitewater, (348-124) but the Warhawks have had an easier ride in the playoffs, beating Albion 59-0, Franklin 41-14, Salisbury 34-14 and now St. Thomas 20-0, for it‘s 44th straight win. Whitewater scored on three of four first half possession to take a 17-0 halftime lead and never let the Tommies dent their end zone. Quarterback Matt Blanchard threw for one touchdown and passed for another. Levell Coppage ran for 110 yards. The only thing that went wrong was a blocked field goal just before the half but they corrected that with a 16 play drive to open the second half that produced the final margin. The defense did the rest, stopping the Tommies on fourth down four times and intercepting two passes.
The Purple Raiders easily beat Benedictine 47-7 and got past Centre, 30-10 but struggled to beat Wabash 20-8 and Wesley 28-21. The Wolverines surprised the home crowd by taking a 14-13 halftime lead into the locker room but fumbled on the first play of the second half. The home team took advantage of that, scoring one of 6-6 230 pound Matt Polito’s four touchdown passes and a two point conversion, (also a pass). Then Wesley fumbled again and again Polito found Jasper Collins in the end zone from 18 yards out, Collin‘s third score. Wesley came back with an 81 yard play, the second long hook-up between quarterback Shane McSweeney and Matt Barile, (they had a 70 yarder in the first half), this one of 81 yards. But that was as far as they could get. Wesley had 496 yards total offense but 6 turnovers killed them.
Championship Game:
#1 Wisconsin-Whitewater 14-0 (502-152) vs.#2 Mount Union 14-0 (544-117)
The Championship game will be televised Friday night, (December 16), at 7PM on ESPN2.
STILL ANOTHER UPDATE:
The previous games in this series had been action-packed: 35-28, 35-16, 21-31, 31-26, 28-38, 21-31. This year’s game was dominated by the defenses. I kept thinking of the LSU-Alabama match-up.
Mount Union won it’s first seven national titles by scores like 34-24, 56-24, 61-12, 44-24, 48-7, (there was also a 10-7 and a 30-27 game mixed in there). This year’s team clearly wasn’t as potent as their past teams. They were limited by the fact that their best quarterback, Neal Seamon, had been injured during the season and they had to go with his back-up Matt Piloto, who can be a good passer if he’s protected and the ball is dry, but struggled in this game faced with a stiff pass rush by Whitewater and a steady drizzle. Piloto is a tall, stationary passer and he was constantly being hit when he threw. Even when he wasn’t hit, he tended to overthrow the ball, apparently because it kind of slipped out of his hands. Seamon came in for a couple of second half plays when the Purple Raiders were down 0-10 and, despite his injury, showed much more mobility and versatility, producing consecutive first downs. You could see the players around him get excited because he was in the game. But then he got hit from behind on a tackle and limped off. Piloto was able to continue the drive and get a field goal out of it. Whitewater answered to make it 3-13 and Piloto managed another late scoring drive to get his team within 10-13. I had visions of the two teams, in their seventh straight title game, going into over time. But a final drive ended in a failed fourth down attempt and it was time for the victory formation for Whitewater.
The Warhawks’ big weapon was All-America running back Level Coppage, who had run for 299 yards in last year’s title game. In this game he had plenty of company wherever he went and wound up with 91 yards in 32 carries. He also caught a pass for 14 yards which means when had the ball on 33 of his team’s 58 plays. That may have been their problem: they were kind of one-dimensional. Whitewater gained only 210 total yards to 238 for Mount Union. But it was enough to get them their 45th straight win and third straight national championship.
When I started following the small college playoffs it was all about teams who had just been scores in the Sunday papers suddenly getting to be on the national stage. I watched Division III championship games that involved teams like Ithaca, Central Iowa, Wittenberg, Baldwin-Wallace, St. John’s of Minnesota, Augustana, Dayton, Wagner, Allegheny, Lycoming, Washington and Jefferson, Albion, Linfield, Rowan etc. The Mount Union-Whitewater rivalry has been fun but I’d like to get back to seeing some new faces next year.
#1 and two time defending champion Wisconsin Whitewater destroyed Albion 59-0, starting with a three touchdown first quarter outburst by Levell Coppage. They gained 475 yards and were aided by four turnovers.
#2 Mount Union crushed Benedictine 47-7 aided by three scores by Jeremy Murray. They had 444 yards and a 29-8 edge in first downs.
#3 St Thomas (Minnesota) had a similarly easy time against another Minnesota school with the odd name of St. Scholastica, (yes there was one: patron saint of nuns and convulsive children), winning 48-2, thanks to three touchdown runs by Colin Tobin. St. Scholastica only managed 73 yards total offense.
#4 Mary Hardin-Baylor built up a 34-0 lead through three quarters and withstood two late scores to beat #14 Redlands 34-13. They rushed for 336 yards.
#5 Linfield won a 30-27 shoot-out with #8 Cal Lutheran. They were actually outgained 296-444 but got their yards early in building up a 20-3 lead. Josh Kay kicked three field goals for the winners.
#6 North Central rolled over Dubuque 59-13, out-rushing their opponents 411-49. unanswered points broke a 7-7 tie and three fourth quarter scores turned it into a blow-out. The final score was 73 yard run in the last minute of play.
#7 Wesley held on to beat Hobart, 35-28, helped by 72 and 66 yard pass plays to Steve Koudossou.
#9 Wabash easily beat Illinois College 38-20. They had a 38-6 lead going into the final period. They out-rushed their opponent, 266-29.
#10 Salisbury blew by Western New England, 62-24, rushing for 568 yards. Dan Griffin ran for 175 yards and 3 scores on 11 carries. Five different players averaged 12 yards a carry or better.
#11 Delaware Valley did even better, rushing for 602 yards in a 62-10 win over Norwich. Norwich had closed to 10-21 with 43 seconds left in the first half but DV scored 32 seconds later on a 32 yard pass play, then added 34 unanswered points in the second half.
#12 Kean handled Christopher Newport 34-10, despite being out-gained 261-328. The key was 6 takeaways, including 5 interceptions.
#13 Johns Hopkins was upset by St. John Fisher 12-23. A big part of the difference was three field goals by Chad Monehim.
#15 Trinity (Texas) was upset by #19 McMurray 16-25, Am 18-7 lead melted to 18-16 when DJ Baiza returned a punt 52 yards for the clinching score with 5:12 left.
#16 Illinois Weslayan lost to Monmouth 27-33 after having a 17-0 lead. The game ended 17-17 in regulation and went to three overtimes. Both teams scored a touchdown, then both scored a field goal. Trey Yocum scored a TD on a 7 yard run for Monmouth who then kept Weslayan out of the end zone for the win.
#17 Franklin beat #20 Thomas More 24-21 after taking a 17-0 halftime lead. Domonique Hayden scored his second TD for Thomas Moore with 3:38 to get within 3 left but the Saints couldn’t score again.
#25 Centre won a wild one, 51-41 over Hampden-Sydney, making a 20-0 first quarter lead barely stand up. Five different players scored seven TDs for Centre. Kyle Vance, Sean Cavanaugh and Kirk Rohle each scored twice for HS. Centre ran for 302 yards while HS passed for 406.
Second Round
#1 Wisconsin Whitewater took care of Franklin 41-14. Levell Coppage scored three more times in leading the Warhawks to a 28-7 halftime lead. Franklin had -5 yards rushing.
#2 Mount Union advanced with a 30-10 win over #25 Centre. The Purple Raiders opened a 16-0 lead with a second quarter safety. Centre came back to make it 10-16 but an 80 yard third quarter drive made it 23-10. Jason Osterman of Centre dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone and the Colonels missed a field goal. Later they turned the ball over on downs at the MU 14. After a facemask penalty on a punt, Mount Union drove 39 yards for the fourth quarter clincher.
#3 St. Thomas broke open a 10-10 tie with Monmouth with two touchdowns each in the third and fourth quarters to win going away, 38-10. The onslaught began with a 100 yard kick-off return of the second half kick-off by Fritz Waldvogel. St. Thomas out- rushed Monmouth 391-4.
#4 Mary Hardin- Baylor beat #19 McMurry 49-20, breaking open a close game with three fourth quarter scores, including a fumble recovered in the end zone and a 40 yard interception return.
#7 Wesley knocked off #5 Linfield 49-34. It was a game of two halves as Linfield led 27-7 at the half only to see Wesley, (the home team despite the lower ranking), score six unanswered touchdowns. Shane McSweeney threw four TD passes and ran for another score.
#9 Wabash came back from a another three touchdown deficit to top #6 North Central, 29-28. Tyler Burke threw four TD passes and a tipped two point conversion to win it.
The game of the day was #10 Salisbury vs. #12 Kean, a 49-47 three overtime thriller. Salisbury jumped out to a 21-7 lead and held it until Kean tied the game at 34 with 45 seconds left on one of three straight TDs by Darius Kinney. It came down to two point conversions in the third overtime and Salisbury made theirs on a run and Kean didn’t on a pass.
#11 Delaware Valley was upset by St. John Fisher, 27-14 The Cardinals got their second straight win over an unbeaten team despite being out-gained 288-385. They took the lead with a field goal just before the half and added ten second half points for the win. Five takeaways were the key to game.
This weeks games:
Salisbury 11-1 (570-237) at Wisconsin-Whitewater 12-0, (448-138)
Wabash 12-0, (407-148) at Mount Union 12-0, (496-88)
Wesley 11-1, (502-170) at Mary Hardin-Baylor 12-0, (540-197)
St. John Fisher 10-2, (370-223) at St. Thomas 12-0, (476-112)
Comment: It’s the greatest rivalry in sports, probably ever. They call then the “Purple Powers”. For years Mount Union was by far the dominant team in NCAA Division 3, winning 7 national championships in ten years. Could anybody compete with them? Then Wisconsin Whitewater became a second Mount Union, even to the point of having similar uniforms, (when they play each other the only way to tell them apart is by who is wearing the white jerseys). They have played for the last six national championships and the scores, (Mount Union’s score first) have been: 35-28, 35-16, 21-31, 31-26, 28-38, 21-31. That’s three wins each with a combined score of 171-170!!! It seems inevitable that there will be a “rubber match” this year.
Whitewater has won it’s last 42 games and is 97-5 since 2005, with three of the losses being to Mt. Union. (They lost to St. Cloud State 16-26 on 9/15/07 and to Wisconsin-Stevens Point 16-17 on 10/25/08.) Mount Union is 98-4 over the same period with three of the losses coming to Whitewater. (They lost to Ohio Northern 14-21 on 10/22/05.) Since 1990, Coach Larry Kehres is 271-12-1 with 10 national championships. The Purple Raiders broke Oklahoma’s record with a 54 game winning streak from 1996-1999 and then broke it again with a 55 game winning streak from 2000-2003.
You wonder how long they can keep this up- and if it would be good or bad if they did. Augustana won four straight national titles from 1983-86 but from 1987-95 fourteen different schools played for the national title and eight different teams won them. The pleasure of watching a Division 3 national title game is that schools that are normally just scores in the Sunday paper get to be on national TV and we get a chance to see what they look like and how they play. I’d love to see Carroll, who has won 6 NAIA titles since 2002 or Northwest Missouri, who’s played for the Division 2 title 7 times since 1998 and won 3 or Grand Valley State, who’s played for 6 D2 titles since 2001 and won 4, get a shot at these two in a combined Division 3. Nobody else seems able to stop them from playing each other for the title every year. I’m kind of hoping for the rubber match but also to see a couple of other teams playing for the title next year.
On the other end of the scale, St. John Fisher lost to Hobart 20-56 and Salisbury 21-41 but managed to make the tournament and has pulled off two upsets over previously undefeated teams to get to the quarterfinals. Salisbury’s only loss was to Wesley, 14-23. Wesley’s only loss was to Kean, 28-31.
UPDATE:
Levell Coppage ran for 213 yards and 4 touchdowns as top ranked and two time defending champion Wisconsin-Whitewater beat Salisbury, 34-14. He’s now the second leading rusher in NCAA history with 7,594 yards.
Mount Union, coached by Larry Kehres, beat Wabash, coached by his nephew, Erik Raeburn, 20-8 holding the Little Giants to 194 yards total offense. Jeremy Murray ran for 152 yards and two scores and Nick Driscoll blocked a punt and recovered a muffed punt return for the Purple Raiders.
In a battle of saints. St. Thomas ended St. John Fisher’s Cinderella run with a convincing 45-10 verdict. The Tommies outgained the Cardinals 408-133 and got an 85 yard kickoff return for a score and led 35-10 by halftime.
Wesley upset Mary Hardin-Baylor 27-24, building up a 21-3 halftime lead and withstanding a 21 point fourth quarter by the host team, who failed on a fourth and three pass at the Wesley 41 yard line in their last possession. Shane McSweeney threw for 253 yards and 4 scores for the winners.
The Semi-Finals:
#3 St. Thomas 13-0 (521-122) at #1 Wisconsin Whitewater 13-0 (482-152)
#7 Wesley 12-1 (529-194) at #2 Mount Union 13-0 (516-96)
Comment: Will it be the “Purple Powers” for the national championship for a seventh straight year? St/ Thomas Coach Glen Caruso, (and Ithaca graduate) said that Whitewater and Mount Union are “the standard of excellence in our division” but that ”We’ll get their best and they’ll get ours”.
FURTHER UPDATE: Yes, it will be the “rubber match” of the “Purple Powers“, the first true rubber match because the pattern of the last six title games: MU, MU, WW, MU, WW, WW, is such that they were never tied until now. Mount Union, (419-71) had an easier time getting through the regular season than Whitewater, (348-124) but the Warhawks have had an easier ride in the playoffs, beating Albion 59-0, Franklin 41-14, Salisbury 34-14 and now St. Thomas 20-0, for it‘s 44th straight win. Whitewater scored on three of four first half possession to take a 17-0 halftime lead and never let the Tommies dent their end zone. Quarterback Matt Blanchard threw for one touchdown and passed for another. Levell Coppage ran for 110 yards. The only thing that went wrong was a blocked field goal just before the half but they corrected that with a 16 play drive to open the second half that produced the final margin. The defense did the rest, stopping the Tommies on fourth down four times and intercepting two passes.
The Purple Raiders easily beat Benedictine 47-7 and got past Centre, 30-10 but struggled to beat Wabash 20-8 and Wesley 28-21. The Wolverines surprised the home crowd by taking a 14-13 halftime lead into the locker room but fumbled on the first play of the second half. The home team took advantage of that, scoring one of 6-6 230 pound Matt Polito’s four touchdown passes and a two point conversion, (also a pass). Then Wesley fumbled again and again Polito found Jasper Collins in the end zone from 18 yards out, Collin‘s third score. Wesley came back with an 81 yard play, the second long hook-up between quarterback Shane McSweeney and Matt Barile, (they had a 70 yarder in the first half), this one of 81 yards. But that was as far as they could get. Wesley had 496 yards total offense but 6 turnovers killed them.
Championship Game:
#1 Wisconsin-Whitewater 14-0 (502-152) vs.#2 Mount Union 14-0 (544-117)
The Championship game will be televised Friday night, (December 16), at 7PM on ESPN2.
STILL ANOTHER UPDATE:
The previous games in this series had been action-packed: 35-28, 35-16, 21-31, 31-26, 28-38, 21-31. This year’s game was dominated by the defenses. I kept thinking of the LSU-Alabama match-up.
Mount Union won it’s first seven national titles by scores like 34-24, 56-24, 61-12, 44-24, 48-7, (there was also a 10-7 and a 30-27 game mixed in there). This year’s team clearly wasn’t as potent as their past teams. They were limited by the fact that their best quarterback, Neal Seamon, had been injured during the season and they had to go with his back-up Matt Piloto, who can be a good passer if he’s protected and the ball is dry, but struggled in this game faced with a stiff pass rush by Whitewater and a steady drizzle. Piloto is a tall, stationary passer and he was constantly being hit when he threw. Even when he wasn’t hit, he tended to overthrow the ball, apparently because it kind of slipped out of his hands. Seamon came in for a couple of second half plays when the Purple Raiders were down 0-10 and, despite his injury, showed much more mobility and versatility, producing consecutive first downs. You could see the players around him get excited because he was in the game. But then he got hit from behind on a tackle and limped off. Piloto was able to continue the drive and get a field goal out of it. Whitewater answered to make it 3-13 and Piloto managed another late scoring drive to get his team within 10-13. I had visions of the two teams, in their seventh straight title game, going into over time. But a final drive ended in a failed fourth down attempt and it was time for the victory formation for Whitewater.
The Warhawks’ big weapon was All-America running back Level Coppage, who had run for 299 yards in last year’s title game. In this game he had plenty of company wherever he went and wound up with 91 yards in 32 carries. He also caught a pass for 14 yards which means when had the ball on 33 of his team’s 58 plays. That may have been their problem: they were kind of one-dimensional. Whitewater gained only 210 total yards to 238 for Mount Union. But it was enough to get them their 45th straight win and third straight national championship.
When I started following the small college playoffs it was all about teams who had just been scores in the Sunday papers suddenly getting to be on the national stage. I watched Division III championship games that involved teams like Ithaca, Central Iowa, Wittenberg, Baldwin-Wallace, St. John’s of Minnesota, Augustana, Dayton, Wagner, Allegheny, Lycoming, Washington and Jefferson, Albion, Linfield, Rowan etc. The Mount Union-Whitewater rivalry has been fun but I’d like to get back to seeing some new faces next year.
