Mount Union's 2003 season ended in a sound Stagg Bowl defeat, and its 2004 season ended at home in the semifinals. D3sports.com photo

By Keith McMillan
D3football.com

The good folks of Alliance, Ohio, have come to know the weekend before Christmas as its own special holiday. It’s the week they usually follow their Mount Union Purple Raiders to Salem for the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.

The people of Alliance and the surrounding area are good people, ones who’ve grown accustomed to meeting by the hundreds in the college cafeteria for pregame brunch. Good luck finding a seat next to someone not wearing purple and white or black. To navigate the ticket line, you may have to get around young girls having their faces painted, or choosing which Mount Union temporary tattoo to apply to their cheek.

Why, now that the grinches from Belton, Texas, have stolen the holiday from the people of Alliance (Dare we call it Whoville?), a serious question has arisen.

Is the Mount Union dynasty dead?

Well, that depends on your definition of “dynasty.”

After losing to St. John’s in last year’s Stagg Bowl, the Purple Raiders were eliminated by Mary Hardin-Baylor in dramatic fashion. The 38-35 semifinal loss means the Purple Raiders will have gone two years without bringing home a championship for the first time since 1994-95.

That we even ask about the end of the dynasty probably makes most of you gag. You either root for a program that wishes it could have won 121 of its last 124 games, 104 consecutive regular season games, 94 in a row in its conference, every conference title since 1992 and seven of eight Stagg Bowls; or you’re a Mount Union fan that uses that as evidence to prove that the Purple Raider dynasty isn’t slowing down.

We could boil Saturday’s loss down to a highly touted defense’s inability to stop Mary Hardin-Baylor when it counted, but the Crusaders’ victory told us two things.

One, when coupled with the St. John’s loss last year and the previous week’s Carthage game, the result probably said more about the rest of the Division III elite catching up to Mount Union than it did about the Purple Raiders sliding back.

Two, this year’s Purple Raiders were a team most schools would envy, but the roster was lean by Mount Union’s standards. 

Gagliardi Trophy candidate Zac Bruney, the Raider quarterback, lacked a strong go-to receiver like Jim Ballard had in Ed Bubonics in 1993, or Bill Borchert had in Kevin Knestrick in 1996 and 1997, or Gary Smeck had in Adam Marino in 2000, or Rob Adamson had in Randell Knapp in 2002.

There was no dominant running back. Chuck Moore was two yards short of gaining 1,000 in the 2001 playoffs. Moore owned that Stagg Bowl, rushing for 273 yards against Bridgewater. Dan Pugh followed it up the next season by scoring 15 touchdowns in the playoffs alone.

And where previous defenses had standouts like defensive end Matt Campbell and cornerback Chris Kern, this team had few, save perhaps middle linebacker Shaun Spisak. 

There was no offensive line that averaged 300 pounds per man, though the 280-plus this year’s line averaged is not too shabby in Division III.

In all, the 2004 Purple Raiders were one of the nation’s three best football teams, but not one of Mount Union’s five best. If not for the incredible jobs done by coaches like Carthage’s Tim Rucks, we might even be considering Larry Kehres for coach of the year. Rarely does a team lose so much talent and come right back the next year and challenge for the national title, but that’s old hat in Alliance. It may not be this way inside their locker room, but to the rest of us, the Purple Raiders are not unlike baseball’s New York Yankees. We expect them to contend every year, and their legacy of success means we probably don’t judge each individual team fairly. We look at runners-up as though they were losers, though we’d flip out if our own team could get that far just once.

Mount Union’s players never take getting to the Stagg Bowl for granted, even though some fans might feel they have to, just to get the best prices on airline tickets to Salem. While there were certainly some cancelled reservations from Ohio this week, new ones were made with gleeful smiles from Oregon and Texas.

The Purple Raiders may start next season ranked in the bottom half of the top five. A Mount Union player who had just been waiting his turn may become Division III’s next Gagliardi Trophy winner. They may yet win another Stagg Bowl.

It‘s too early to pronounce the dynasty dead. As long as Larry Kehres and Don Montgomery are running the show in Alliance, we figure the Purple Raiders will be a factor.

This year however, it’s time for two new guests to enjoy the party.

Initial thoughts on Saturday’s Stagg Bowl
> Mount Union’s Larry Kehres called UMHB’s offensive line the best he’s ever seen, and that may keep UMHB in it.
> The hype of the passing team vs. running team is already circulating.
> I think either team has a chance if it adjusts to the weather and avoids turnovers.
> The team that is best on defense and special teams will probably win. Both offenses will score.