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| Susquehanna athletics photo |
By Greg Thomas
D3sports.com
The last team to be selected to the 2019 Division III NCAA playoff field has been on quite a ride. All North Central has done since receiving that fifth and final Pool C bid is beat — in order — teams ranked at the time of the contests 1, 9, 4, 7, paused for a championship celebration and a pandemic, then returned to beat teams ranked 21 and 5 to open this season.
What about the next team that just missed the last dance — the first team out as it were? Susquehanna is that team and the River Hawks are dedicating this season to not being that team ever again.
Susquehanna ended the 2019 regular season on an eight-game win streak, their lone loss coming in overtime to eventual national semifinalist Muhlenberg. There was a lot of reason for optimism in the Susquehanna locker room on Selection Sunday.
“We were optimistic, I think,” Susquehanna head coach Tom Perkovich said. “When Oshkosh beat Whitewater, we knew that wasn’t helpful, but we thought we’d still be pretty close.” Indeed, Oshkosh’s WIAC bid-clinching win against Whitewater in the last game of the 2019 regular season would move the cut line just in front of the River Hawks.
Craig Roumes, who was a second-team All-South Region linebacker that season, captured the uncertainty for student-athletes that comes along with life on the tournament bubble. “We were hoping for the best and we were optimistic. I was super anxious and excited to see what was going to happen.”
“We got together and watched and it was tough,” said Perkovich “For me, in 19 years of coaching, that’s probably the hardest day I’ve had.”
It was hard to be within a whisker of the postseason, but it was really the seniors that Perkovich felt the most for. Susquehanna had won just three games in the two seasons prior to Perkovich’s arrival in 2015. The turnaround has been noteworthy, and Perkovich wanted to see those 2019 seniors rewarded for their work. “Our senior group really strapped this program on their back and turned this program around,” Perkovich said. “To not see them reach that goal was difficult.”
Roumes was one of those seniors. However, after losing his freshman year to injury in 2016, Roumes had always intended to return for a fifth year. Enter the pandemic and a new timeline. Roumes now had a choice to make; complete his career at Susquehanna at the conclusion of the 2020 academic year or defer that final step and play his final season this fall.
“It wasn’t a tough decision for me. I knew I wanted to play football and I knew what I wanted to do,” Roumes said. “I knew I wanted to finish out my career with this team one last time.”
Offseasons are long for every team, but offseasons for teams that may have lost their final game or, let’s say, just missed being included in the championship tournament are interminable under normal circumstances. “We were hungry to get back on the field,” Perkovich said. “We thought we had a really good team coming back.”
Like every other tour in 2020, the River Hawks redemption tour would have to wait- and Susquehanna would have to sit with that 2019 disappointment a little longer. Perkovich hasn’t let his team forget that past though. “We got some really good work [in 2020-2021] especially with the freshmen. Now we’re relying on those guys to step up,” the head coach noted. “We just tried to make the most of our opportunity [during the pandemic]. I thought our football team got better and I thought we stayed focused.”
Nearly two years later, the feelings from that 2019 Selection Sunday underpin Susquehanna’s approach to this 2021 season. With nearly half of their roster having not played a college football game prior to this September, Roumes and other players remaining from the 2019 season have been intentional about telling the new players about that experience. “I think we do a good job expressing to the young guys how we felt after the selection show and hopefully how we never have to go through that again.”
Susquehanna is on the right path to the playoffs in 2021 having started this season with three wins, although the River Hawks did have a scare in Week 2’s five-overtime game against Franklin & Marshall. The NCAA’s new overtime rules have teams run one two-point play beginning in the third overtime — about as close to penalty kicks as we’ll get in college football. Susquehanna, knowing how valuable every single win is, found themselves in this scenario- trading single-play two point attempts for all the marbles. What did that feel like?
“As stressful as it gets!” Perkovich laughed. “We’ve had games like this here in the past. We had four overtime games in 2018. We’re not shy to them. Our kids played with resolve and never said die. They literally made one more play than F&M who played really well that day.” Perkovich did tell Around the Nation that he had one more two-point play left on the sheet for a sixth overtime, but things would have got weird if the game went longer than that.
Roumes, as you might expect, stayed in the moment. “At the time, I really wasn’t thinking about how big and meaningful each play was, I just knew that each play we wanted to be the last play,” the senior said. Roumes took a moment before adding, “Looking back at it, it was a lot of fun and I don’t ever want to do it again.”
With seven games left to show that they belong in the postseason, the River Hawks will all draw on that feeling from 2019. “There’s not many days that I still don’t think about it,” Perkovich said, “and we’ve used it as fuel for this season to honor those guys that weren’t able to still play.”
For Roumes and his teammates, just missing out in 2019 feeds their fire. “It fueled us. Right now we’re talking about unfinished business. In order to make the playoffs and leave no doubt about making the playoffs we have to win every game. We’re treating every week like a playoff game.”
Who let the dog coat out?
Confession time — I think turnover props are absolutely ludicrous in the best way possible. I love the creativity, I love the randomness, and I love the way teammates and fans go berserk when the prop gets unleashed. Sudden change? So 2010s. Sudden costume change? Now we’re talking.
At Susquehanna, they have the Turnover Coat. Defensive coordinator Pat Ruley has coined his defense the Wild Dogs. Prior to this season, Ruley came into possession of a fur coat (did not ask how this happened) that he thought exuded the Wild Dog aura of his defense. After close examination of video of the Turnover Coat, I can confirm that it does indeed give off strong “wild dog” vibes.
You’ll know them Wild Dogs are huntin’ when you see the “Turnover Coat” off the hanger. ��❄️���� #WildDogs #HuntingSzn #PhotoShoot pic.twitter.com/pq2x0OjDh6
— Pat Ruley (@FollowTheRuless) September 22, 2021
Roumes, a recent wearer of the Turnover Coat, told Around the Nation, “If you create a turnover it’s an honor to put that coat on and wear it around on the sideline.”
Asked about whether the heavy coat was appropriate for late summer, Roumes said, “It was hot against Moravian, but it hasn’t picked up any funky smells yet.”
We hope it stays that way.
Rising/falling
This week’s most notable Top 25 riser is North Central. The Cardinals leapfrogged from No. 4 to reclaim the No. 1 ranking after their victory over Wheaton in Saturday’s Little Brass Bell game. North Central has that No. 1 ranking by just one single poll point and with No. 2 Mary-Hardin Baylor hosting No. 7 Hardin-Simmons and No 3 Mount Union traveling to No. 21 John Carroll this weekend, the top of the D3football.com Top 25 may stay fluid for a little while longer.
Rising like a loaf of quarantine sourdough on my ballot has been Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays have migrated from not on my preseason ballot to No. 12 this week. Going over 700 yards of offense and 70 points twice in three games is the kind of thing that gets my attention.
Unsurprisingly, Muhlenberg took the biggest tumble this week sliding from No. 8 to No. 24, which is to be expected when losing at home to an unranked team. There is clearly a lot to settle in what is already a lively 2021 Centennial Conference.
I’d like to thank ...
Special thanks this week to Susquehanna head coach Tom Perkovich and Susquehanna student-athlete Craig Roumes for spending time with Around The Nation this week as well as Susquehanna Director of Athletics Communications Jamie Chagnon for helping to coordinate the conversation!
On tap
It’s really a weeklong tasting flight of Division III football content in the fall. Here’s what you can watch for every week at D3football.com:
Tomorrow - Quick Hits featuring our panel’s predictions and insights into this weekend’s games
Saturday - Game day. Get thee to the scoreboard and feast.
Sunday - New Top 25 poll
Monday - Around The Nation podcast. Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas recap the weekend that was and preview the weekend to come in Division III football.
Tuesday/Wednesday - Features columns
Thursday - Around the Nation column
Read options?
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.
