2010 Around the West columns

There’s something about PLU that’s just captivating, whether their wacky warm-up routine, their demeanor on the field, their unfailingly positive head coach or their fans.

Wartburg's unbeaten run ended up netting it the IIAC title.

With their convincing 43-6 win over Gustavus Adolphus last Saturday, St. Thomas became the first team in the West Region – and the second team in the country – to clinch an automatic bid to the playoffs by winning the MIAC title.

I don’t know how you spent your Saturday afternoon last weekend, but the single best hour of my day was the one I spent listening to the final quarter of the most incredible football game so far this season.

In the first half of last weekend’s first-place showdown at then-No. 6 Coe, a different hero stepped up: the Knights’ offense.

At the West Region's midway point, there's one playoff lock and a bunch of contenders. Tim Walsh explains.

Coe came up with big-time defense in a big-time game, and it garnered some big-time respect, moving the Kohawks up to No. 6 in the polls.

"The way we've done things the last 30-40 years, we can't do that anymore …we've got to make changes," Scott Westering said in the preseason. At 2-0 with a win against a ranked team, Pacific Lutheran is moving in the right direction.

Whenever St. John’s and UW-Eau Claire meet up, it’s a solid bet that the game will be close, exciting, and come down to the wire.

If ground transportation was a problem for Willamette on Sunday, it certainly wasn’t on Saturday afternoon, as the Bearcats rushed for 277 yards in a 33-14 win at UW-Stevens Point.

When people around here ask me what team I root for and I respond "Willamette," the question of how I got bitten so badly by the Division III football bug comes up fairly frequently.