Matt Olson is Martin Luther's leading running back. Which is good, because there aren't many backups.  Martin Luther athletics photo

By Ryan Tipps
D3sports.com

Every year for D3football.com’s preseason publication, Kickoff, staff writers ask schools how many players they’ve brought into camp. More often than not, the number is close to 90 or 125 or 145. Occasionally, it’s even higher.

In the rarest circumstances, it’s close to 30.

Last weekend, because of the small roster and injuries early in the season, Maranatha Baptist had to cancel a game against Concordia-Chicago. The Sabercats have the smallest roster in Division III.

While the decision might be a sour one for players, coaches and fans, it’s not difficult to understand. Can you imagine, at the college level, fielding a team that has virtually no backups at most positions? The players are exhausted after halftime. When banged up, they have particularly tough choices about whether to fight on or whether to sit out a play or a series. There’s little room for flexibility.

Coaches have their reputations on the line in terms of wins and losses, and if we are to look at higher education primarily as a business, then it’s obvious that the more students you have, the better the financial outlook. There’s often pressure on coaches to keep numbers up.

Maranatha Baptist, as a school that has stayed dedicated to its religious roots, is a little unique in that respect. And few understand the Sabercats’ situation – and empathize with it – like Martin Luther head coach Doug Lange. His team is the second-smallest in the division, with a roster that numbers in the 40s.

Martin Luther faces a number of challenges when putting together a team, and the singularity of the school is a key factor in that.

“The key for Maranatha and especially for our team is that we’re a specialty school in that we only have three college majors that all are church related,” Lange said. “For us, it’s a wholly different challenge that what most other colleges see.”

The Knights first are limited by the population of the church body, which Lange said is about 400,000 total across the nation. Then, the prospective students must choose to become dedicated to one of just three educational paths: a pastor track, a teacher track or a staff ministry track.

Though those are significant hurdles, Lange also points to three broader forces contributing to the decline of his pool of potential players:

• Wider access to youth soccer nationally means that more kids play earlier and continue into high school, so they go that route instead of playing football.
• The amount of attention being paid to football-related injuries – particularly concussions – has grown immensely and is turning some parents off to the sport.
• As the costs of higher education have risen, more students are being forced to earn tuition money by working part-time instead of having time to play intercollegiate sports.

When Martin Luther’s student-athletes do take the field, Lange said the team doesn’t have the numbers to build the kind of depth that other programs have. Still, only “very sparingly” do athletes play both ways. One example would be defending a fourth and long situation, when perhaps the quarterback or wide receivers get on the field to play in the secondary.

You can’t do it often, he said, because “you simply can’t put guys at risk of injury.”

He said his team has never reached that critical point where he felt the threat of safety was so significant that he had to cancel a game.

Another Minnesota team, St. Olaf, has a roster in the mid-50s, a particularly difficult situation in the tough MIAC, which currently boasts four teams in the Top 25.

Coach Craig Stern said the numbers limit what can be done in practice without leaving players injured. He said his players aren’t able to be as physical as they would like to be.

“The ability to practice to the same emphasis and degree that you’re going to see on Saturday is probably a little bit challenging,” he said.

He’s also sometimes forced to use his top backups during practice to run demos of opponents’ offenses against the first-team players – something he calls a mixed blessing. While the starting units are getting better scout looks, at the same time, the backups aren’t getting the reps they need to properly prepare for running St. Olaf’s schemes on game day.

“We don’t dwell on [on our roster size]; we don’t talk about it; we don’t make excuses,” Stern said. “At the end of the day, each team can have 11 guys on the field at any one time. So the fact that one team has 130 guys standing on the sidelines, and we have 43 standing on the sidelines, those guys on the sidelines aren’t impacting play on the field.”

Stern said there has been a decline in the roster size in recent years as St. Olaf’s academic profile has grown more elite.

“A number of years ago, we went after guys that were great football players,” Stern said, “but the problem was that they weren’t always great students, and they weren’t interested in biting on the rigor of the St. Olaf academic experience.”

Stern said he expects the roster to grow over the next two years – with only nine seniors on the team this season, it seems hard to believe that a recruiting class would send the numbers any direction but up.

His target number is between 100 and 115 players – big enough to have depth, yet small enough to give everyone the opportunity to play. It fits with his philosophy.

“We’re not really interested in guys, regardless of how good they are, who it’s important for them to go and just be someplace because that place has had success recently or is returned to being successful, versus a guy who loves football and wants to play early in his career,” said Stern, who is in his second year as head coach after serving several seasons as an assistant.

Coaches are not always eager to talk about the challenges of small roster numbers or why the teams lack bigger numbers. But both Lange and Stern point to positives of having fewer players to manage.

“Having a smaller number of guys means that you’re able to spend a lot more time focusing on coaching guys a little more in-depth,” Stern said. Young guys can be developed more, and they have opportunities for significant playing time, he said.

For Lange, he said, “It really becomes a team family setting. We get to know students very well, and they know us very well. And we get a David and Goliath mentality at times. We think, ‘Hey, let’s not let anything stop us now, not our size or our numbers.’”

He also said each player gets a significant amount of drill time and special attention from the coaching staff. For example, the Knights have just seven offensive linemen this season, so reps are nearly constant.

The Martin Luther coach, who has been at the helm for a decade, also noted that because of how specialized the school is, it attracts student-athletes who could be stars elsewhere but want this kind of religion-based education.

“We, at times, get better athletes than some of the other D-III schools, and that athlete or two can carry us a long way,” he said.

Perhaps the biggest positives that each coach gleans extend well beyond the football field.

Stern said his small teams might give them new avenues toward adversity, but it’s something that he readily accepts head on. Overcoming struggles is what makes life rewarding and gives people the opportunity to be selfless and respond in a beneficial way, he said, something that will translate to their work and family lives when these student-athletes get older.

“The secret to life,” he said, “is not a secret: You have to work hard, and you have to endure hardship and be able to overcome obstacles. … The hard lessons are usually the ones that stick the most and help you the most later in life.”

At Martin Luther, Lange said, “One of the things we get out of our situation is a tremendous amount of effort and the understanding that even though we’re small, it doesn’t mean we have to roll over and give up.”