By Matt Florjancic
D3football.com

At this point in the season a year ago, the Washington and Jefferson Presidents were looking back at their first round game against North Carolina Wesleyan and wondering how they were upset by a No. 8 seed in a familiar setting.

However, the Presidents made sure they did not have a repeat performance this year. Washington and Jefferson (10-1) earned and won its first round home game against Christopher Newport 35-29.

In the game, senior linebacker David Gitlitz totaled 14 tackles, three solo. He registered two tackles for losses yardage and 1.5 quarterback sacks.

As a team, Washington and Jefferson allowed Christopher Newport 291 yards of total offense. On the ground, an area where the Presidents have struggled, Christopher Newport managed 197 yards, nearly 60 yards below its season average.

"Our defense is much improved over a year ago," said Presidents coach Mike Sirianni. "The big thing that we wanted to accomplish was to stop the run. We weren't happy with our run defense any of the last few years.

"Besides the two quarters at Thomas More, I thought we had done a great job of stopping the run," he added. "Thomas More came with that little option that we don't see and they do a great job running it. In the game last week, when we're playing the nation's leading rusher, to hold him to 160 yards, [including] a 51-yard run with less than two minutes to go, I felt our guys did a great job."

The victory in the postseason could also be attributed to a new defense. Instead of the traditional 4-3 front Washington and Jefferson ran in the past, they are now utilizing a 4-2-5 with Gitlitz is in charge of getting everyone in the right place to make plays.

"He's our Mike (middle) linebacker, so he makes all the calls," Sirianni said of Gitlitz. "That's a lot on a senior to learn. He embraced it, never complained and did a great job adjusting to a new scheme. Maybe in a 4-3, the Mike linebacker is going to be more of a focus. In a 4-2-5, it's the safety. He's adjusted to not being the No. 1 tackler all the time.

"He covers a lot of ground," added Sirianni. "I wouldn't say he's blinding fast, but he is 6-3 and he's got long strides. He can get downhill fast. One thing we really talked to him about doing this year is getting downhill and making more tackles for loss. He's done that. He's played a lot better in terms of pass rush and that's been a key to our success."

The Presidents struggled against Oberlin at the beginning of the year and lost the Presidents' Athletic Conference championship at Thomas More on Nov. 1. Since that time, Washington and Jefferson is 3-0 and has allowed 45 total points.

To a man, the Presidents learned that every game is a gift that needs to be respected, because victories are not given by simply showing up and walking off the bus.

"The Oberlin game taught us to not be complacent," Gitlitz said. "The year before, we won ten regular season games, most of them easily, and we thought coming in that it'd be easy again. Oberlin woke us up and the Thomas More game, again you get into a little complacency over the season where you think just because you're wearing a W&J uniform, you can go out and beat anybody. The past three weeks, we've really shown how much more focused we are at attaining our ultimate goal.

"We all realized that we need to change," added Gitlitz. "We had a meeting with the team only and said our season's not over. We looked at the '92 and '94 teams that were up on the wall in our coach's office. Both of those teams had a loss in the regular season and they both went on to the national championship game. We all think we can do that."

The road to an appearance in the national championship game goes through Jackson, Miss., and Millsaps on Saturday afternoon.

Millsaps comes in with an unblemished 11-0 record and a strong passing offense. The Majors average 307.6 yards per game through the air. Quarterback Juan Joseph, one of ten players up for this year's Gagliardi Trophy, has completed 67 percent of his passes (270 for 403) for 3,130 yards and 31 touchdowns.

While Joseph has thrown six interceptions on the year, the team has lost 18 of 31 fumbles.

"It's another step toward the goal to win a national championship," Gitlitz said. "This week, we have to play a great game. Millsaps is a great team. We're going to have to get stops on defense. If we get some turnovers, the offense is going to have to put up some points.

"Juan Joseph is a great quarterback," added Gitlitz. "We have to get pressure on him and force him to make mistakes, get them into third-and-long and hopefully, get some stops."

"That's a great challenge and it's a little different," Sirianni said. "They do have a couple good backs, but they're more of a passing team. We're going to have to cause some turnovers. If we go down there and they don't turn the ball over, I don't know if we can win. If we play like we're capable of playing, I think we'll be in the game in the fourth quarter. That's all you can ask for when you're a road team in the playoffs."