By Ryan Tipps
D3sports.com

Everybody talks about expectations when they talk about their football teams – expectations for the players, the game and the season.

Over the weekend, I traveled hundreds of miles to see my then-No. 3 ranked alma mater challenge DePauw in one of college football's great rivalries, the Monon Bell Game. The Wabash community was one of high expectations, but those would fall well short of being realized. A 23-0 halftime score tells the story better than the 36-14 final does.

That's the tone that swept through much of the country and the mid-Atlantic region in Week 11.

The shakeups, surprises and upsets are more valuable to look at now, seeing them a few days removed, without clouds of emotion. There's depth in how they have affected the postseason and how these teams look toward the 2009 season.

Two of the three most significant games in the mid-Atlantic were separated by just three points. The other saw a 21-10 Hampden-Sydney lead evaporate in the fourth quarter, handing rival Randolph-Macon a win in The Game as well as the Old Dominion's automatic qualifier. The conference was finicky this season, with four of the seven teams sharing the title with 4-2 conference records.

R-MC backed into the playoffs, of sorts. After starting the season 2-4, the Yellow Jackets won their final four games, including matchups between two of the other top teams in the conference. However, this late-season success has given R-MC, which has the worst record of any playoff team, a low seed and a shift into the East Region to be paired in Round 1 with Mount Union.

Going up against MUC, "I think the way we have to look at it is that they're the best," said R-MC coach Pedro Arruza. "There's no question that they've established that over the years. Coach [Larry] Kehres has done an unbelievable job with that program."

Mount Union has dwarfed its opponents this season just as in years past. No one has put up more than 20 points on the Purple Raiders, and most teams were held to 7 or fewer on the scoreboard.

Arruza is aware, and respectful, of what kind of legacy the Yellow Jackets are up against.

Zak Thornton got 94 yards on 23 carries before leaving Saturday's game with an injury. Courtesy of Axionfoto

"To maintain that level of excellence for as long as they've maintained that level of excellence is just amazing," he said. "The best part about it is that it'll give us a great benchmark as to where we are as a program."

No other mid-Atlantic team has as tough of a draw as the Yellow Jackets. Christopher Newport ground out a challenging 13-10 win against Ferrum, giving the Captains the USA South's automatic qualifier and a trip to Washington & Jefferson in the first round.

Muhlenberg's overtime loss to rival Moravian on Saturday ruined a perfect season and dropped the Mules a few spots in the seedings. They will host Wesley, which is probably underrated as a No. 7 seed.

Like Randolph-Macon, Moravian's rivalry victory capped a whirlwind winning stretch that saw the Greyhounds enter two overtime games and escape two others with just one-score leads.

To finish the season this way, Moravian head coach Scot Dapp said, "I was just proud of the way the kids went in there with a purpose and had a lot of confidence in themselves and played that way. We jumped on them early and really had the game in our hands."

That early control seemed shaky as Muhlenberg took the lead late in the fourth quarter. At times "it looked bleak, but the football gods were smiling. Our linebacker made a great play and stripped [running back John] DeLuca of the ball. We fell on it and were able to take it in for the tie. In the overtime, I just don't think these guys were going to be denied at that point."

Moravian has finished the way it started, sandwiching its two losses between four-win stretches at the beginning and the end of the year. "The attitude about these kids, the one thing that's so good about them is that they have faith in each other, they have faith in themselves," Dapp said.

Similarly, R-MC has hit its stride in these later weeks, salvaging some of the team's preseason expectations. The team notched one of its best records in years in 2007 but started '08 at 2-4.

"I thought we were a much better team earlier in the year than we showed at times," Arruza said. "Everybody's asked me, ‘What's the big difference?' Well, the biggest difference is we probably had some guys that took some things for granted at the beginning of the year. I don't think we practiced very well at the beginning of the year. We weren't the most focused team at times."

In the conference opener, R-MC stunned then-undefeated Catholic, but then got tripped up in the following weeks. But ultimately, with R-MC winning down the stretch, the icing on the cake was the 31-21 win against Hampden-Sydney. It was the first time R-MC has won that matchup since 2000, also making it the first for Arruza.

Winning The Game "was definitely an awesome, awesome feeling. I think I was the last person off the field," the coach said. "I was out there for probably a couple of hours after the game. It was a great feeling, and I think our kids have worked really hard. …

"I think the best thing about it, what probably meant the most to me, was being able to send the seniors out on a winning note [for the regular season]. … These were the first guys that I recruited. They've been with me for four years. They've sacrificed a lot for the football program."

With the mountain of a Mount ahead of them, what kind of mindset are the Yellow Jackets in?

"I think you have to approach it like any other game," Arruza said. "I think that's the one thing you can't do is approach it like it's a different game."

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