A disappointing outcome
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I’m disappointed my alma mater, No. 6 ranked UMHB, lost 7-3 to No. 2 ranked UW-Whitewater Warhawks. I’m disappointed they couldn’t manage a touchdown. I’m disappointed that they have lost twice to Top 20 teams. I’m disappointed that this loss, considered and in-region game, could send them on the road should they win the ASC title this Saturday.
But my biggest disappointment is with a question I read in the newspaper and with anyone who has ever asked it.
The lead of the story read like this:
Saturday’s 7-3 loss to second-ranked Wisconsin-Whitewater answered the question as to whether Mary Hardin-Baylor can compete with anyone in the country.
I know of the guy that wrote that story and I respect him a great deal. But his lead raises a question of my own. Who in the world, let alone Central Texas, was wondering if UMHB could compete with anyone in the nation?
If you are a fan or a follower of UMHB football then let me relay a word of wisdom to you. This is one of the few times in this column I will refer to UMHB as “we” so buckle up.
We’ve been playing Division III football since the fall of 1998. We have been to the playoffs four times and played for a national championship just two seasons ago. During that 2004 Stagg Bowl season we played teams from Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio and two teams from Oregon. You might remember the team from Ohio -- Mount Union, the D-III standard bearer. Ring a bell?
Just this season we have traveled to Virginia and hosted a team from Wisconsin. They were both losses but so what? The Cru’s all-time record against teams from out of state is now 8-6. Against teams from Texas? 63-18. Of those 18 losses, half are to Hardin-Simmons (five) and Trinity (four).
Why is anyone even asking the question about whether UMHB can play with anyone in the nation? I have gone out of my way in this column to not be a “homer.” I write about UMHB because they are very good, not because I attended school there. I have gotten 50 emails questioning my loyalty from people asking why I don’t support my school.
Well now they get their wish because that question (not the reporter but the question) strikes a nerve with me. The same goes for UMHB fans though. If you’re content to sit back and pat yourselves on the back for losing just 7-3 to the No. 2 team in the nation then walk into the locker room after another one of those games. You won’t see a smile and you won’t hear about moral victories. Some of these guys are a late Linfield sack away from being the 2004 national champions.
Coach Pete Fredenburg and his staff stopped asking this question two years ago and it’s time for everyone to do the same.
As for the game itself …
I couldn’t be there. I had a commitment that I made long before I started writing for this site and I wouldn’t break it.
But from the updates I got from the game and the reports I’ve read of the game then it was just what I expected. Well, except for the opening kickoff.
I thought there was the potential for a lot of offense but these are two defenses that have earned the right to be called great. UMHB gave up only 120 yards of offense and the Warhawks made it inside the UMHB 40 only three times and came away with nothing.
Of course, UMHB’s offense was terribly inefficient. They missed a field goal, fumbled and got picked off inside the Warhawk 30-yard line. Judging by those numbers it sounds like UMHB gave the game away. On the flip side, judging by the numbers, it’s a different game if injured Warhawk running back Justin Beavers is playing.
The lone quasi-offensive highlight was UWW’s Neil Mrkvicka’s 94-yard dash to the end zone on the opening kickoff. Not bad for a guy whose last name has 22 letters and only one vowel.
It’s hard to write about games like that and convey just how good of a game it must have been. I think the reason is that a lot of writers use numbers to convey significance. When there aren’t a lot numbers, it makes the game seem less important.
The most important number of the game in my opinion is 10. That’s the number of yards the Crusaders were docked after a holding penalty turned first and goal from the UW-W 4-yard line into first and goal from the UW-W 14-yard line. Two passes later they kicked a 27-yard field goal for their only points of the game.
You didn’t have to be there to know that you can’t commit any penalties inside your opponent’s 5-yard line and hope to win.
Weekly SCAC attack
I guess upset of the week goes to Centre, which dropped a 28-24 loss on DePauw. Led by Adam Blandford’s rushing, receiving and throwing prowess, the Colonels evened their record at 4-4 with two games to play. Blandford ran for 134 yards, caught three passes and completed a 20-yard pass in the win.
This win struck another blow for balance in the SCAC as three teams (Rhodes, DePauw, Centre) have two wins and three (DePauw, Centre, Austin) have three losses.
Blandford won the SCAC Offensive Player of the Week award and teammate Brian Dougherty shared the Defensive Player of the Week honor. Dougherty split the award with Millsaps Marcus Harris and Trinity’s Patrick Hayes. He had ten tackles, five of which were for a loss. He also had a pair of sacks in what was Centre’s first home win ever against DePauw.
Centre actually trailed the back-and-forth game late but Blandford scampered in to the end zone with 59 seconds left to put the Colonels on top for good. DePauw had rallied from a 21-13 deficit but scored 11 points in a row to take a 24-21 lead.
In the loss, DePauw’s Dustin Hertel broke the Tigers’ career sack record. His first half sack gave him 31 for his career and moved him ahead of Doug Lowery, who played at DePauw from 1986-89. Running back Jeremiah Marks had 162 yards rushing to move into second place on DePauw’s all-time rushing list.
The most disappointed group of guys in the SCAC has to be the Rhodes Lynx. Nobody outside of San Antonio expected them to drop a 41-7 decision to anyone. Rhodes came into the game allowing just over 171 yards per game in total offense. Trinity had 173 in the first half. Certainly disappointing to the Lynx but I think they’re better than that and they have a chance to prove it next week against white-hot Millsaps.
The Majors won their fifth in a row thanks in part to Harris’ three tackles and three-interception showing. If you’re keeping tabs at home that is five interceptions for Harris in the last two games. It looks like the only guy that can stop Juan Joseph (27-for-46, 333 yards, three touchdowns) might be on his own team.
If Harris had to guard anyone on his squad he might want to start with receiver Chris Jackson. He has 20 catches in his last two games (ten in each game) and had 121 yards and two touchdowns in a 35-18 win over Sewanee.
Millsaps is closing in on a Nov. 11 showdown with Trinity and there is more on that at the end of this column.
Tigers, Cowboys back on track
It’s been a trying year in Marshall, Texas, for a number of reasons and that’s why I’m happy to see ETBU back on the winning track. The Tigers started 0-5 but have righted the ship and are now 3-6 overall and 3-4 in ASC play. This week they play UMHB, who needs a win to lock up the ASC title.
In 2003 ETBU traveled to Belton and stunned everyone in Tiger Stadium with a 28-21 overtime win over the Crusaders. The win earned ETBU a share of the ASC title and the conference’s automatic bid to the playoffs where they beat Trinity and then lost at Lycoming 13-7 in overtime.
The Tigers host UMHB this Saturday and are coming off of a 35-30 win over Mississippi College. Of course, I make no predictions but ETBU head coach Ralph Harris always does well against his old squad.
Hardin-Simmons is obviously back emotionally from its loss to UMHB. Personally, I think UMHB just made them mad.
Since that loss HSU has scored 154 points in three games. Jordan Neal is cruising and he is taking advantage of every weapon that he has. Will Galusha, Mychal Carrillo, Justin Greene, Quinton Jones and Matt Fields are torching their opponents.
Their game with Sul Ross was tied 14-14 before the Cowboys reeled off 42 straight points for a 56-14 win.
Please, please, please, please NCAA – give these guys an at-large bid. No one deserves it more than them. Geez, put them in the Forth Worth Bowl against some Conference USA team. They’ll win..
Poll Position
The polls from D3football.com and the AFCA are out and I have just one complaint. Hardin-Simmons is ranked higher than UMHB in the AFCA poll. The 11th-ranked Cowboys got 556 points to 466 for the 14th-ranked Crusaders. I respect the vote of the coaches but I think they got that one wrong. I totally agree that HSU is a top-15 team and maybe a top-10 team nationally but they lost to UMHB who has just two losses, both to top 15 teams. Yep, the coaches got it wrong.
As I mentioned UMHB is 14th in the AFCA poll but stayed at No. 6 in the D3football.com poll. Hardin Simmons moved up to No. 7 in the D3football.com poll. I would love it if those two got a chance to play each other again.
Last week I proposed a hypothetical scenario that could have put Sul Ross at the top of the regional rankings. I did it to see if it would get people talking.
Boy did it.
I got some vicious e-mails from people telling me how out of touch with life I was. They’re right as I am, in fact, out of touch with life but my hypothetical got people talking and that was the point. They were also right.
I still love Sul Ross and what they’ve done this year but there is no way possible I can keep them in the top five in the region. It’s not that they have two losses. It’s the way that they lost those two games. A 45-2 thrashing by UMHB and a 56-14 loss on Saturday to a Hardin-Simmons team that has obviously recovered from the UMHB game really hurt their legitimacy as a Top Five regional team.
So does the fact that they have been outscored by 40 points in conference play. But if you take away the two lopsided losses to UMHB and HSU then they have outscored the rest of their ASC opponents 142-97. So it’s not like they’re having a bad year, they’re just not quite ready to enter the upper echelon in the ASC. Yet.
Trinity is No. 23 in the D3football.com poll and No. 19 in the AFCA poll. Their position prompted this e-mail from a frustrated Trinity fan:
… points sure do mean a lot in this poll, but what about the concept of crappy conferences and regions? What about the fact that a team has won 13-straight conference championships? What about the fact that they have made 10 straight trips to the NCAA D3 play-offs and one trip to the (Stagg Bowl)? What about the fact that Trinity's middle linebacker is playing on a torn ACL? What about Trinity's backup QB coming in for an injured starter to throw 3 TDs and dominate Rhodes once again? I won't even go into the whole academic admission pressures on the level of talent Trinity is now getting either. Case in point, as a perennial top 20 team (not just top 25), Trinity should be higher then they are now.
I can’t speak to the specifics of why a certain team is ranked higher than another but I can address some of the things in the email.
You can’t vote for the 2006 version of the Tigers based on their 13 straight shared or outright conference championships or their 2002 trip to the Stagg Bowl. And you certainly can’t rank them because they have tough admission standards.
The argument about “crappy” conferences could hold some weight though. But I would counter with the question of whether the SCAC is considered a “crappy” conference. I don’t think it’s a bad conference (my love affair with the SCAC is well-documented) but the people that do the voting might find it to be a little less competitive. I think the South is also a very tough region.
Since I’ve only been doing this particular job a year I’d be interested to hear what Ron Boerger or another regional columnist thinks. Feel free to respond at chris.allman@d3football.com.
Here is what I do know about Trinity. They have won 27 consecutive SCAC home games and a win over Sewanee on Saturday would mean that they haven’t lost a home conference game in 11 straight full seasons.
They also have the best defensive nickname in all of college football in the “Black Flag”. (Yes, Cru fans, it is better than Purple Crush). The Black Flag has allowed 27 points total in their last four meetings against Sewanee and they haven’t given up 20 points in a game since a 28-25 win over Redlands last season.
On Saturday, Jacob Cannon came in to replace injured starter Blake Barmore and threw three touchdown passes. Defense and depth are two things that are hard to compete with and Trinity has both. I think that they roll past Sewanee and then come out on top against Millsaps for their 246th consecutive SCAC title.
Anyway, here is my South Region Top 5
1. UMHB
2. Hardin Simmons
3. Trinity
4. Millsaps
5. ??????
Truth be told, UMHB and Hardin-Simmons are probably 1 and 1A, respectively but that’s not the way that it works in the real world. As for my No. 5 choice, it really does come down to who I think would win if 5-3 Rhodes played 5-2 Sul Ross State. As I mentioned before I can’t put a team in the top five that has two losses by a combined 85 points. For the record, I do think that Rhodes would win, but not by a whole lot. Tell me who you’d put in the No. 5 slot.
Looking ahead
It’s a huge weekend in the South as we could see one team clinch it’s conference crown and two others set up a championship finale.
UMHB needs a win over ETBU to capture its fourth ASC crown and (perhaps) host a playoff game. A UMHB loss and a HSU win means that UMHB will have to win their finale against Howard Payne to clinch the title. Two losses and two HSU wins means that the Cowboys get the crown and the playoff spot. The latter just ain’t gonna happen.
The more likely South scenario is that Trinity and Millsaps will both win and play each other next weekend. Common sense says that Millsaps can’t look past Rhodes because we know how good the Lynx can be. If they do meet in two weeks with identical, unblemished conference records you will see a Millsaps squad bursting with emotion against a workman-like Trinity team. The upstarts against the steady winners.
In closing, I’ll say get well soon to Sul Ross quarterback Austin Davidson who was injured in the loss to Hardin-Simmons. No one has confirmed what the injury is but I hate to see a kid who has played so well lose his season to injury. Last season’s Lobos squad was decimated by this kind of thing and I want them to finish strong this season.
As always, question, comments and funny jokes can be sent to chris.allman@d3football.com.