By Keith McMillan
D3sports.com
We’ve had the opportunity to go around the nation this year, both literally and figuratively. Before we look back the year that was, there is one more matter left to settle: The 31st Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.
We’ve all but awarded Mount Union its eighth championship, but they do have to actually win it first. If it were anyone besides the team that spent most of the year ranked No. 2 with the game’s all-time winningest coach on the sidelines, we’d have a more difficult time believing the Purple Raiders’ opponent might provide a challenge.
The classic St. John’s and Mount Union provided in wet Salem weather in 2000 will be hard to live up to. Can exciting wideouts Randell Knapp and Blake Elliott help match the drama of the Purple Raiders’ game-winning Rodney Chenos field goal?
We can’t tell you that, but since we at D3football.com are among the few folks that have been to Salem as often as the Purple Raiders have, we can advise you about what might be in store Saturday. Whether you’re making the drive from Ohio or Minnesota, or planning to rise and shine for the 11 a.m. kickoff (8 if you’re in Linfield’s time zone), here what’s to look for and forget about:
Six things to expect in Salem
1) Fans who know their way around the place: Eight trips to Salem for Mount Union fans, including four consecutive seasons now, and you’ll hear things like we did in the press box in Alliance last week. Bridgewater hadn’t even left the premises, and Mount Union folks already knew which of the two traditional team hotels they’d be staying at. Perhaps Johnnie fans who attended in 2000 also remember that in the Roanoke area, Corned Beef is more than just a dish.
2) Stiftungsfest burgers cooking in the parking lot: The regional favorite burgers are the talk of the Collegeville pregames. Provided by the man known to D-III football fans as "Johnnie Red," they have traveled as far as McMinnville, Ore., and are now coming to Salem.
3) Mike Miller blanketing Blake Elliott, if he plays: As X's and O's go, we really wanted to see the Purple Raiders’ top cover man take on the Johnnies’ top playmaker and Gagliardi Trophy winner. If Elliott is not 100% but he plays and occupies Miller, that might still be a good thing for the Johnnies, provided they can find offense elsewhere like they did against RPI.
4) Johnnies punter Charlie Carr threatening his own Stagg Bowl record for punts: The St. John’s senior set the mark with nine in 2000. With Mount Union and its stingy defense surrendering just 6.5 points per game this season (the number has “ballooned” to 8.0 per game in the playoffs), Carr may want to limber up like, now.
5) A chess match: Two coaches, perhaps the best in Division III, will go head-to-head, in the living legend (St. John’s coach John Gagliardi) and the legend in the making (Mount Union’s Larry Kehres). Though Kehres is 3-0 against St. John’s in the playoffs, both staffs are among the best game-planners and halftime adjusters out there. We’re curious to see if each side “dances with who brung ‘em” or comes up with a game-changing strategy.
6) The Purple Raiders hoisting another trophy: Hey, that’s what our hot-shot prognosticators say.
Six things not to expect in Salem
1) A shootout: With the offensive firepower available Saturday, one might think high scoring could be in the works. But in championship games, teams may play it close to the vest early. If the game is close late, expect Mount Union to run behind an offensive line starting four 300-pounders. Unless conditions are perfect, O-lines are stuffing the pass rush and defensive backs can’t cover, we don’t expect to see both teams in the 30s or 40s. The last time the teams met in the Stagg Bowl, St. John’s held Mount Union to 60 points fewer than they scored the week before (70 and 10). That’s mathematically possible again, though we expect Mount Union to score more than six points.
2) A record crowd: That both teams have been to Salem recently could be a boost to attendance or a bore, especially to Purple Raider fans who’ve seen it all before. The drive from Minnesota is no jaunt around the block, so expect some to opt to watch it on cable or listen to it on D3football.com (pregame at 9:30 EST). But honestly, we just don’t think any crowd can top the one which rooted mostly for nearby Bridgewater in 2001. That game kicked off in prime time, allowed standing room only entry and still turned people away at the gate.
3) Head coaches’ names to always be pronounced correctly: Someone new to the game, whether a TV personality or someone else, will manage to botch Gagliardi (guh-LAR-dee) or Kehres (CARE-us).
4) A quick-moving game: Those of us who played in Division III appreciate the speed of a non-televised game. Those long pauses can blunt momentum, but we recognize ESPN2’s extra-long TV timeouts are a necessary evil.
5) Great weather: We’re not anticipating wet weather like during the 2000 Stagg Bowl. The forecast calls for average weather, partly cloudy, low of 33, high of 45, and a 10% chance of precipitation. Hey, it’s not Florida or California, but it’s not Minnesota or Ohio either.
6) Retirement speeches: Though Gagliardi’s been doing this coaching thing for a few years, and Kehres has Division III football mastered, win or lose, we could expect either one to move on after Saturday’s championship. But neither has given any public indication that they will do so. In fact, both can be expected back on the sidelines of the programs they brought to prominence next season. Kehres was rumored to be pursued by Princeton and Kent State after recent seasons, and Gagliardi was pursued by San Diego a few decades ago. Bridgewater head coach Mike Clark, a Cincinnati graduate, may want to call some fellow alumni and nudge Kehres toward the Big East-bound Bearcats and their as-yet-unfilled opening (Bob Davie was and Frank Solich is believed to be among the candidates). Then if whoever fills Kehres’ shoes is only half as good, the Eagles and the rest of Division III will have a shot at upcoming Stagg Bowl titles. Which brings me to my next item.
The 226 vs. 1 theory
If the Division III season is just a big competition for second place, well then congratulations St. John’s — you’ve already won. If, however, the rest of Division III is ever to believe they can climb the mountain that the Purple Raiders rest squarely atop, a St. John’s win Saturday would go a long way towards making others believe the champions are mortal.
But even when that is the case, as it was this weekend when Bridgewater came into Alliance rather confident, it doesn’t always pan out. Like St. John’s, Bridgewater has played Mount Union as close as anyone, thinking back to the 3-point losses in the Stagg Bowl. They had reason to be confident, even though those were past years and different teams.
Ties have been abolished since 1997, so one team has to win each time two step on the field together. That the winning team has been Mount Union 109 of the past 110 times they’ve played in an amazing testament to continuity, focus and skill. The Purple Raiders take every challenge seriously, though it’s reasonable to wonder what is said behind closed doors the week before a 40-point whooping is doled out.
St. John’s, of course, is no Cinderella stumbling upon Division III’s grand stage. But even its legacy is beginning to pale in comparison to Mount Union’s. If that weren’t enough pressure, don’t forget that 226 other programs are watching hoping that they too can someday scale the Mount Everest that is Mount Union.
To be the best you have to beat the best, someone once said, unaware he or she was coining a sports cliché for the ages. Or maybe we’re taking this winning thing a little too seriously. This is college football after all, where the main purpose is to learn and grow as people.
As Frosty Westering might tell each team, play your best, and the scoreboard will take care of itself.
Purple playoff
Mount Union fans, we need your help on this one. Now that eight Purple Raider teams have qualified for the Stagg Bowl, and none have come home empty-handed so far, it can't be too early to start a discussion you've undoubtedly debated before this week.
Which Mount Union team is the greatest?
To help answer that question, we've taken the liberty of seeding the eight Stagg Bowl teams semi-randomly. If you were to look at it like an eight-team playoff, I'd like a few Mount Union die-hards to briefly let Around the Nation know who would win and why. We'll share the results of our non-scientific poll in one of our wrap-ups.
We came out with two sets of pairings, one designed to make sure one player wouldn’t have to face himself in the first round, a la Dan Pugh in 2001 rushing for 75 yards against Dan Pugh in 2002 rushing for 175. Here are those “brackets,” stacked top to bottom as a real bracket would be, so 1997 would play 2002 in the second round (if those were your winners) and so on…
1993 vs. 2002
1997 vs. 2000
2003 vs. 1996
2001 vs. 1998
The second set were seeded pairings based on a quick survey the site ran last year that asked which team was the best in the run. The results were:
2002: 1474 votes
1997: 750
2001: 522
2000: 479
1993: 437
1998: 368
1996: 275
Alright, experts, tell us about the 1993 Purple Raiders of tight end Rob Atwood and quarterback Jim Ballard would do against the 2000 crew of Gary Smeck and Adam Marino. |
There was no data in that poll for 2003, of course, and we adjusted for the excitement following a just-secured championship (not to mention Trinity fans) and re-seeded 2002.
No. 1 2003 vs. No. 8 1996
No. 4 2000 vs. No. 5 1993
No. 3 2001 vs. No. 6 2002
No. 2 1997 vs. No. 7 1998
Use whichever set of brackets you prefer, then tell us which Mount Union team would be the supreme champion, if all were to face off in the Purple Playoff.
If this were Division I …
We’d have lined up St. John’s and Mount Union in the Stagg Bowl as soon as the season ended, in our 1 vs. 2 BCS-like championship game.
While we’re fantasizing like true sports geeks, let’s speculate about where that would have left us under the Division I bowl system.
It’s fair to say Linfield, Wartburg, UW-La Crosse, Wheaton and Baldwin-Wallace would have been five of the other teams in the top eight (BCS). We’ll throw semifinalist Bridgewater in for good measure.
That would have left us with a good bowl game in Bridgewater vs. Wheaton (since we can judge them to be about equal based on their losses to MUC), and maybe La Crosse vs. Baldwin-Wallace and Linfield vs. Wartburg.
Shoot, you could use many of this year’s first round games as bowl matchups. Or you could make up games, like St. Norbert and La Crosse in the Real Cheese Bowl or RPI and Brockport (or Ithaca) in the Upstate Classic.
Imagination piqued? Send us your best bowl creations, or just the teams you would have liked to see matched up, and we’ll share them with readers in the future.
But it’s still Division III …
In talking to Mount Union defensive coordinator Don Montgomery, I was reminded that Division III is still Division III, where academics take precedence over athletics. NESCAC presidents pay attention, it can be done!
If you’ve been out of school for a while, you might forget that this time of year isn’t referred to on campus as “hell week” and then “finals week,” and not so much the “happy holidays."
Teams that make runs deep into the playoffs must balance possibly the most important games of their lives with the maybe the most important tests of their lives.
“If a young man has a final, then he’s got a final,” says Montgomery of Purple Raiders’ school vs. practice policy. “We practice about 3 o’clock daily. If they have a 1 o’clock final, then they get here as soon as they can. If they have a 6 o’clock final, they have to be prepared, so coach Kehres lets ‘em go an hour early so they can get something to eat and review their notes.”
Montgomery remembers some years — mostly before the playoffs expanded from 16 to 28 teams, adding a fifth week — when the Purple Raider players would bring books to Salem, knowing they had rescheduled finals when they returned to Ohio.
“They were studying down there,” Montgomery said. “They had to take finals the day we got back. It is tough on you.”
Montgomery says Kehres reminds the players every day starting in August to stay on top of their studies, so, among other reasons, passing grades for the entire semester don’t come down to needing a miracle final.
Montgomery also realizes that while he’s been preparing for playoff opponents, his peers have a month’s head-start on recruiting. In the OAC, no team is allowed to leave campus to recruit, so having as many days to get prospects to campus as possible is ideal.
Lucky for Montgomery, top-notch facilities and seven championships have a way of convincing players to commit.
Closing thought
Factor out the Mount Union blowouts, and this has been one of the best Division III playoffs to date.
We wrote about how the first round was filled with close games, with just two blowouts (by more than two scores) and eight decided by a touchdown or less, including two overtime games.
The second round was half close games, with Lycoming’s OT win over East Texas Baptist the most interesting. The round of eight was all great games, not including Mount Union of course. And RPI was tied with St. John’s at the half before it got ugly.
Makes us wonder how competitive the whole thing would have been if Mount Union hadn’t been making Division III’s finest look bad week after week. But you can’t fault a team for being great at what they do.
