Kevin Lewis, a junior, and his Keystone teammates finally got to take the field after an extra year's wait. Keystone athletics photo

By Greg Thomas
D3football.com

Not all Week 1’s are built the same. Week 1 of 2021 was unlike any we’ve experienced in the D3football.com era — or the Division III era for that matter. More than half of the division has waited in excess of 650 days to play a competitive game. 

Those delays seem like just a few grains of sand in the hourglass when compared to Keystone College’s football hiatus. The Giants, Division III’s newest football program, ended a 74-year pause when they took the field for their first varsity football game at Wilkes on Saturday. 

Keystone had been scheduled to begin its Division III journey in 2020, but like so many other things in 2020, that debut would be put on hold.

“We were one of the last few to try to hang on [to play in fall 2020] because it was so important,” Keystone coach Justin Higgins said. “We had not only the class of 2019 who had gone through the club year in 2019 and they were obviously ready to come in and play plus the new guys in the class of 2020 so we had a lot of guys ready and hungry for that first season.”

After their options to play in the fall of 2020 were exhausted, Higgins went back to work with his first two recruiting classes. 

“We had to shift from what could have been a disappointing fall to finding an emphasis on how to make it useful for us. Our motto is ‘One Day, One Brick’ and working every day to build the program in a positive light. If you look at our workouts and practices in the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021 you couldn’t tell that we had ninety plus guys that just lost their inaugural season. They did a great job of taking it and saying ‘how can we use this to get better.’” 

After another year of work, another year of days and bricks, Keystone’s moment finally came this past Saturday at Wilkes. Kickoff on Saturday was a first for all of Keystone’s players, but for juniors such as running back Kevin Lewis that have been with the program almost as long as Higgins, finally getting to this point was special. “We couldn’t wait to get on that field to play against another team in our first season,” Lewis said. “There was a lot of intensity.”

Higgins wanted his players to be aware of the moment they were in as well. “I talked to them before the game to just enjoy the moment,” he said. “For all of these guys, especially in Kevin’s class, to work hard to get to this point, I wanted them to enjoy it. “

On an afternoon where Keystone’s offense had difficulty gaining traction, Wilkes methodically pulled away from the Giants through the afternoon en route to a 46-7 victory. That doesn’t mean Keystone was without positive moments. Freshman linebacker Tyshaun McClain forced a fumble on Keystone’s first defensive possession. Another brick. Three of Keystone’s final four drives went to the red zone. More bricks. 

Those game experiences are, more than anything, what Keystone needs to continue its growth. “We understood that we weren’t going to go into inaugural game No. 1 and be a polished product,” Higgins said. “Game experience is something you can’t substitute. We know that these games, especially these early non-conference games, we want to go about and be competitive, but we have to be process driven and not just outcome driven.” 

That perspective is important for programs in their infancy. Programs with playoff experience like Berry and Huntingdon were both shut out in their debut Division III games. Misericordia, next week’s opponent for Keystone’s home opener, lost 70-0 in their program’s first game in 2012. The Cougars made a huge jump in 2018 to go 7-1 in MAC play and earn an ECAC Bowl bid. There is a process to building a program from the ground up, one that Higgins and his players are all aware of. Every play is an opportunity to accelerate the program’s growth toward more competitive games and better outcomes. 

“How we act and play, nobody should be able to tell what the scoreboard says,” Higgins said. “When we came out in the second half and kept pushing and kept competing. That goes a long way when we get things fixed, if that’s there, then we can be very successful.”

The program’s emphasis on process over outcome in these early moments does not mean Keystone’s players don’t have an eye on outcomes. In the fourth quarter Saturday, Lewis capped a 70-yard drive with a 3-yard touchdown run — the first touchdown in Keystone’s inaugural Division III season. When asked about what it means to have scored that historic first touchdown, Lewis said “It always feels good to score. The outcome of the game wasn’t what we wanted, so it goes past me honestly.”

That’s Kevin Lewis, the competitor, speaking about an important moment that doesn’t feel that important two days after a tough opening-game loss. 

Lewis took a few beats to consider the question of history and added, “But to know that I have the first touchdown, it’ll feel good in a few years.” He knows that touchdown is another important brick for Keystone. 

Keystone will have more firsts this Saturday when the Giants host Misericordia in their first home game of this inaugural season — Keystone did not play at home during its club football season in 2019, so this truly will be the first home football event for this program in more than 70 years. “Our campus and community are really excited about what’s going on and they’re ready for a home game,” Higgins said. “It will be nice to see the support that I know we’re going to get and I think the game day atmosphere will grow to be a really good one.”

Lewis said the team is excited this week for the first home game, but are more focused on their own improvement. “It’s our first home game so we want to come out and be better than we were last week,” he said. 

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Higgins just wants his team to keep improving. “If we take every opportunity to get better and grow with every practice, every meeting, and every game, the wins will come,” he said. With ECFC play four weeks away, the Keystone Giants have plenty of opportunities to improve, and plenty of time to build that brick pathway to the program’s first win.

Rising/Falling

Beating ranked teams on the road is a good way to fly up the rankings and this week’s biggest riser did just that. Washington & Jefferson’s 21-14 win at then No. 11 John Carroll catapulted the Presidents up six places this week to No. 13. I am a little surprised that the D3football.com Top 25 did not see Aurora gain more ground than they did. The Spartans gained two poll positions and 22 points (just less than one position per ballot) after coming up 1 yard short against No. 6 St. John’s. Aurora moved ahead seven spots on my Week 1 ballot. 

Aside from the expected John Carroll slide (down 11 spots to No. 22) the Top 25 didn’t see a lot of backward movement. UW-Oshkosh, Randolph-Macon, and Chapman all shuffled back a couple of spots after game results that didn’t quite match the voters’ expectations. My biggest backward move this week was Montclair State who moved from No. 17 on my preseason ballot to outside of my top 25 after a 21-20 loss to RPI. 

I’d Like to Thank…

Special thanks this week to Keystone coach Justin Higgins, and Keystone student-athlete Kevin Lewis for taking time to talk to Around The Nation this week as well as Keystone Sports Information Director Sean Saputo for helping to facilitate those conversations!

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Small college football is actually pretty massive. Division III is home to 239 teams, many thousands of student-athletes and coaches. There are so many more stories out there than I can find on my own. Please share your stories that make Division III football so special for all of us! Reach out to me at greg.thomas@d3sports.com or on Twitter @wallywabash to share your stories.