More of 2005 year in review
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 McMillan, who has provided color commentary on D3football.com's national broadcasts of the Stagg Bowls, played in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference for four years and covered it for two more. He has been a columnist for D3football.com since 2000. E-mail Keith at keith@d3football.com. Dec. 14 Sizing up the finalists
Nov. 30 The familiar faces are just that
Oct. 25 A playoff run through Iowa
Oct. 19 Warhawk weekend turns quickly
Oct. 12 2006 midseason report
Oct. 5 Recipe for a revival
Sep. 21 Big week in the Empire State
Sep. 14 Inside a cross-country showdown
Sep. 6 Good games hide below radar
Aug. 31 It's never too early to learn
Aug. 30 ATN's 2006 conference rankings
Jan. 27 105 ways to remember 2005
Jan. 26 More of 2005 year in review
Jan. 25 Even more of 2005 year in review
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Keith McMillan's 2005 year in review continues:
Six teams that far outperformed their preseason ranking
UW-Whitewater, Wesley, Thiel, Ferrum — we know those teams excelled. How about …
32. Bridgewater State, ranked 182nd of 231 by myself and Pat Coleman in the preseason, finished 9-1.
33. Frostburg State, ranked 160th, went from 2-8 in 2004 to 6-4, not including an ECAC Bowl loss to Moravian.
34. Bowdoin, ranked 189th, flipped its record from 2-6 to 6-2. Though they were fortunate to win some early games during which they were painfully outgained, the only teams to beat the Polar Bears were Trinity and Colby, a combined 15-1.
35. Defiance, ranked 221st, went to 6-4 from 1-9.
36. Maine Maritime, ranked 207th, went from 3-6 to 7-3.
37. We ranked Trinity (Conn.) 59th. Simply put, we just weren’t respecting the NESCAC powerhouse. I finished with them in the top 20 on my ballot, ahead of Trinity (Texas).
38. Notable steps backward: Shenandoah‘s slide, from the 2004 playoffs to 1-9 this season, is about as far as you can go.
Norwich missed Pierre Garcon, falling from 7-3 (7-4 with an ECAC loss to Alfred) to 3-7 with their star sophomore at Mount Union. Springfield slid from 8-2 to 4-6, while Lake Forest, Nichols and The College of New Jersey also won four fewer games than in 2004. Mary Hardin-Baylor and Carthage were each down by four as well, but more due to exceptional 2004 records than bad seasons in 2005.
Grinnell, Mount Ida, UW-Platteville, Wooster and Muhlenberg each won five games fewer than it did in 2004, while Shenandoah dropped by six.
Seven teams that fell well short of their preseason ranking
There were some dogs for sure, led by Shenandoah at 62 and Emory & Henry at 74. Both went 1-9. Here are five more bad calls:
39. No. 29 UW-Stevens Point had national champion Linfield on the ropes in 2004, but finished 4-6 this year against a brutal schedule.
40. No. 44 Muhlenberg’s precipitous drop from the playoffs to 3-7 wasn’t quite as bad as Shenandoah’s, but the Mules were the team that emerged from the five-way tie to represent the Centennial Conference in the playoffs in ’04.
41. No. 47 Pacific Lutheran. One of only four in our top 50 to finished with a losing record. The Lutes’ fall from 1999 national champion to 3-6 this year would have been more painful if they weren’t so youthful.
42. No. 57 UW-Platteville dropped to 1-9. Perhaps we were giving out too many points just for being in the WIAC, but then again, this was no typical year in that league. The good was great (UW-Whitewater). And then there were the Pioneers, who lost every game after a 26-0 win over Dubuque to start the year, and allowed 37 points per game in the nine losses.
43. No. 56 The College of New Jersey went from 7-2 on the playoff fringe to 3-7, including a 30-13 season-opening loss to fellow disappointment Muhlenberg.
44. Millsaps, ranked just 106th but with an coaching staff with recognizable names and Division I-A experience, and coming off a 4-5 year, went 2-7.
45. We only had Mount Ida at No. 156 following a 6-2 season in 2004, but the tagline earns it play here. In the 1-231, we predicted Mount Ida was “looking at another small step forward.” It finished 1-9.
46. First-half teams that went bad in the second half: McMurry, WPI, Kenyon, UW-Stout.
47. Best second half team (The slow start, strong finish award): Remember that five games does not a season make. There were several solid nominees for our ‘slow start, strong finish award. Guilford and Willamette had two of the best second halves, but we have featured them elsewhere. A third team had a great second half: After a 1-3 start, Howard Payne could have given up on 2005. Instead, a 24-20 win over Mary Hardin-Baylor, No. 2 in the country at the time, began a streak for the Yellow Jackets. Howard Payne won its last six games, four by a touchdown or less, to get to 7-3 and finish tied for second in the ASC.
48. Proof that wins are hard to come by: Aside from Trinity (Conn.), which didn’t have to put its 8-0 record on the line in the playoffs, no one went undefeated. But 11 went winless. They were Massachusetts Maritime, Nichols, Concordia (Ill.), Wesleyan, Lewis and Clark, Heidelberg, Becker, Macalester, Menlo, Juniata and Tri-State. To be fair though, 11 teams did finish the regular season unbeaten, and the only team to make it through the playoffs without a loss, Mount Union, lost in mid-October.
THE MEMORABLE STATISTICS
49. Hard to beat the OAC in the playoffs: With Capital — No. 3 on my final ballot — eliminated in the round of eight by Mount Union, it marked yet another year when one of the country's best teams was stopped by the best team, who also happened to be a conference rival. Since the playoffs expanded from 16 teams in 1999, the OAC has sent 12 teams to the postseason. The conference is 33-8 in the playoffs since then, but four games were head-to-head meetings, meaning the conference is 29-4 (.879) against teams from other conferences.
> Suggested by: Chris Barr
50. Receptions aren’t everything: Mary Hardin-Baylor wide receiver P.J. Williams only caught 32 passes but had a great year, with 11 total touchdowns and 1,428 yards all told, between kickoff and punt returns. He also broke a Division III record with 278 punt return yards in a game.
That record in and of itself caused some consternation among Widener fans, who were aghast when we noted Williams had broken the record of Otterbein’s John Conroy. But of course, when Billy “White Shoes” Johnson set his punt return record in 1972, Widener was Division II. The first Division III championship wasn’t held until 1973.
> Suggested by: Colin Bloodworth of Belton, Texas
51. One dad, 7,059 passing yards: This e-mail from the father of three Division III quarterbacks, including two that started this year, fit well here:
“Keith - I'm not sure what category this would be, but against Dickinson, J.D. Ricca (my son) threw 6 TD passes in the first half to six different receivers … maybe never been done before … and you'll be glad to know that you still hold the individual record for most interceptions of a Ricca in a game (4) ... but the way Catholic heaves it that may not last much longer.
John Ricca”
Keith Ricca passed for 3,311 yards for Catholic, while J.D. passed for 3,748 for Hampden-Sydney. Both were among the nation’s top 10 in total offense, though only J.D. was in the top 70 (he was fourth) in passing efficiency.
52. Thirteen sacks, then eight fumbles: In their 62-3 playoff victory over Monmouth, St. John’s had 13 sacks and held the Scots to minus-3 rushing yards on 44 carries. And Monmouth held the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game (38:20). Ouch.
The following week, by the way, the Johnnies fumbled eight times, losing seven, in a 34-7 loss to UW-Whitewater.
> Suggested by: Ryan Coleman
53. Standings falling into place: “Interestingly,” says Mann, “not a single team in the SCIAC beat a team that finished higher than them in the standings. Occidental was undefeated, Cal Lutheran beat everyone but Oxy, Redlands everyone but those two, etc. There were some close games between these teams, but no upsets according to the final standings.
Other leagues had remarkable symmetry in the final standings. Like the SCIAC, no two teams won the same number of conference games in the IBFC, Empire 8, NEFC Bogan or Liberty League. The W column in the conference standings reads 7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 (without the 7 in 7-team conferences), and the L column read the same back up. There’s no guarantee the standings will shake out that way, even in a closed league like the NESCAC, whose teams were a symmetrical 8-0, 7-1, 6-2, 6-2, 5-3, 3-5, 2-6, 2-6, 1-7 and 0-8.
54. Fast starts: Thiel finished the season with the nation’s ninth-best rushing defense, allowing just 80 yards per game. Waynesburg’s Ryan Abels ran for 102 yards against the Tomcats … in the first quarter. The Yellowjackets built a 21-0 lead, but Thiel came back to win 35-28 in two overtimes. And Abels finished with 125 yards rushing.
> Suggested by: Ronald Abels
55. Virginia is for offense: Teams from the Old Dominion, or those who played several games inside its borders, take home our “most bang for the buck” honor this season. Sure, their poor defenses didn’t get them very far, even for the state teams that made the postseason, but it sure made for some fireworks on Saturdays.
Consider the offenses of Ferrum, Hampden-Sydney and Bridgewater. Remember that Guilford and Catholic racked up much of their offense in the state, as members of the ODAC. Even Randolph-Macon had the 12th-ranked receiver in Division III.
56. Least bang for the buck: “Look no further than the Framingham State Rams who managed to score just 57 points on their entire season,” says Paul Schreel, a former Division III player who worked with our Gordon Mann during three playoff broadcasts. “Shut out four times on the year, they actually managed to win two games this season (which accounted for 41 of their 57 points). The Rams have not broken the 100-point plateau for a season since 2001 so their inability to light up the scoreboard is nothing new. The Rams gave up 57 or more points in a game twice this season, against Bridgewater State and Fitchburg State.”
Across Division III, Schreel notes, 78 teams scored 57 or more in a single game.
57. Remember how difficult offensive consistency is to find: Lebanon Valley (2-8) scored 35 or more five times, and scored 27 once. In the other four games, they were held to a single touchdown.
> Suggested for two-man show by Jim Coughlin: Lebanon Valley’s Dan Kelly and Adam Brossman.
58. Remember the best individual single-game offensive performance: Every suggestion ATN received for this category was for Kmic‘s 361-yard day against Augustana. Pat Cummings, who called the game for D3football.com, sent the e-mail to nominate him right after it happened: “Nate Kmic's 361 yards against Augustana's run defense, which was allowing 125 yards per game on the ground. No trickery involved — Kmic just did it easily. 37 carries, averaging 9.1 yards per carry with no run longer than 34 yards. Lots to look forward to in Alliance.”
> Also suggested by Mike Bradshaw of Canton, Ohio; Dave Ross (SeventiesRaider); Thiel fan/student Michael Voelker
Others to remember: McMurry’s Ty Sellers (by Ralph Turner), for a 200/200 passing/rushing performance, and five TDs against Louisiana College. He nearly did it again against Sul Ross State, having a hand in six TDs and rushing for 223, but passing for “only” 191.
59. Best single-game offensive performance, team: Rockford and Washington & Jefferson each racked up 778 yards in a game, against Principia and Hanover, respectively. Fifteen teams racked up 658 or more yards in a game, but only one did it against a defense that finished among the nation’s top 120. St. John Fisher’s 672-yard, 58-32 win over Rochester on Sept. 10 ranks as the most impressive, since the 4-6 Yellowjackets actually played a little defense. They held six opponents to 20 points or fewer and had the 95th-ranked defense, including the Cardinals’ big day. St. John Fisher set a school record that day, as Noah Fehrenbach had more than 200 yards receiving and Mark Robinson went over 200 rushing.
> Other games that stood out: Mount Union’s 70-0 win over John Carroll (7-3), UW-Whitewater’s 73-12 defeat of Lakeland, an eventual playoff team, and Augustana’s 64-42 win over Elmhurst, which finished 6-4 and came into the Vikings game allowing 16.6 points per game.
60. Best single-game defensive performance, player: Monmouth double-teamed Gagliardi Trophy finalist Damien Dumonceaux, a first-team All-American defensive end who led the team in tackles. That freed up the other end, junior Kevin McNamara, for 7½ of his 12 sacks on the season. Monmouth coach Steve Bell told the Peoria (Ill.) Journal-Star the pair worked together: “McNamara was just getting the end result. Dumonceaux would flush Mitch out of the pocket and right into McNamara."
> Suggested by: Noah Retka
61. Best single-game defensive performance, team: In their 12 wins, Wesley averaged more points than some basketball teams (47.9). But national runner-up UW-Whitewater shut them down during a 58-6 semifinal win. More stunning was Brockport State’s 47-0 win over the Wolverines, given that the Golden Eagles allowed nearly 21 points per game to everyone else it played.
62. Most overhyped: We’re guilty of thinking Don Montgomery’s experience at Mount Union would translate into immediate success at Emory and Henry. But since we’ve touched on that elsewhere, let’s touch on something else that gets more play than it deserves:
We've heard about enough of these false records that have arisen since the NCAA began counting postseason statistics in official records, something it did not do before 2002. This season's most-repeated record-that-really-wasn't involved UW-Whitewater sophomore running back Justin Beaver.
Although Beaver finished with 2,420 rushing yards, a tally few have reached in a single season at any level, he did it in 14 games, including a 30-carry, 125-yard Stagg Bowl. That breaks down to 172.8 yards per game, which is both ridiculously impressive and nowhere near the Division III record. In fact, by average, it's not even one of the 10 best seasons of the past decade or one of the 25 best all-time.
The highest rushing total truly belongs to Simpson's Ricky Gales, who rushed for 2,035 yards in a 10-game regular season, then gained 389 more on 51 carries in a single playoff game. That 42-35 first-round loss to St. John's in 1989 ended the most prolific rushing season in Division III history at 2,424, an average of 220.4 per game. And even that ranks as the fourth-best per-game average, behind three backs who did not make the playoffs. Marietta's Dante Brown rushed for 238.5 yards per game in 1996, Grove City's R.J. Bowers went for 228.3 in 1998 and Coe's Carey Bender ran for 224.3 in 1994.
And considering that Beaver had zero receptions on the season, one could argue that St. John Fisher's Mark Robinson (2,194 rushing yards, 232 receiving yards in 12 games during his sophomore year in 2004) has done what Beaver's done by going over 2,400 yards from scrimmage. Including 345 kick-return yards and 49 receiving yards, Wooster's Tony Sutton totaled 2,634 yards in 12 games (219.5 per) last season.
Point being, Beaver's yardage output was exceptional, but not unprecednted. Perhaps his accomplishment is better cast in the light of him being consistent enough to rush for that many yards, week in and week out. Only three teams had ever played 15 games before (2004 Mary Hardin-Baylor, 2002 Trinity (Texas) and 2000 St. John’s).
Adjusted to include the playoffs, Pat Coleman and I compiled some of the highest rushing yardage totals in history:
Gales, Simpson, 2,424 in 11 games in 1989
Beaver, UW-Whitewater: 2,420 in 14 games in 2005
Brown, Marietta: 2,385 in 10 games in 1996
Chuck Moore, Mount Union: 2,349 in 14 games in 2001
Bowers, Grove City: 2,283 in 10 games in 1998
Bender, Coe: 2,243 in 10 games in 1994
Sutton, Wooster: 2,240 in 12 games in 2004.
OUR MEMORABLE “AWARD-WINNERS”
63. The ‘Glad we went to 32 teams this year’ award: Says Mann: “I’m not sure Capital would’ve made the postseason with two losses under the old format. But they made the most of their chance and pushed the eventual champs to the limit. Wilkes might have been the last team in according to our calculations, but I'm not sure they can be “thankful" for getting pummeled by Rowan in the first round.
Says Paul Schreel, an Ohio Northern graduate who has done radio with D3football.com broadcasters: “Capital would have been sitting at home like ONU did in 2004 had the 28-team field still been in place. They represented very well in the playoffs and showed everyone they deserved their Pool C. And for the record, I am eating some crow in pointing this out so I want to make sure Capital gets the credit they deserve.”
> Capital also suggested by Mike Bradshaw; Eric Park, Paul Schreel.
64. The ‘Wish you were here’ award: Officially renamed the Trinity Bantams Award, as Connecticut’s finest capped a third consecutive unbeaten season without joining the postseason fun. I know we normally go with the NESCAC [for this award],” says Mann, “but they exclude themselves by choice. So how about a pair of seniors who appeared playoff bound until injuries shortened their seasons? Jordan Neal of Hardin-Simmons (preseason No. 4) only played in three games for the Cowboys who were gunned down short of the playoffs. Dustin Johnson of Salisbury (preseason No. 15) suffered a similar fate in the Sea Gulls’ Week 4 loss to Montclair State. Who knows if either team would've made the playoffs with their starting quarterbacks under center. But it's unfortunate they didn't get a chance to try.”
65. The “Don't forget why we're here” award: Sure, there was a national championship game on Saturday, but four UW-Whitewater football players got their hands on something besides walnut and bronze hardware: They graduated the Thursday before the game. From the Stagg Bowl diary on UW-Whitewater's official Web site: "We can't do justice to the day by going in chronological order, because the most important event of the day took place during lunch. Seniors Mike Askren, Michael Chaulk, Jim Leszczynski and Jake Kreiser went through graduation ceremonies. Although the quartet will miss the formal ceremonies in Kachel Fieldhouse Saturday, Dr. Martha Saunders, UW-W chancellor, presented the diplomas and conferred degrees, via speakerphone, with the aid of UW-W director of athletics Paul Plinske and Joe Bailey. Chaulk was recognized for earning cum laude honors."
66. The crazy schedule award: UW-SP, Brockport State, Wesley, Montclair State (played seven of its ten games on the road, including an ECAC game), Willamette
Also suggested: Brockport State, by Mike Mangone
67. The crazy road trip award: On Oct. 8 Husson (Bangor, Maine) had a date with Southern Virginia (Buena Vista, Va.) for some non-conference, non-division football fun. Heavy rains cancelled the game after the Eagles arrived, sending Husson back the way it came. “I’ve driven from Philadelphia past Bangor, Maine and from Philadelphia past SVU,” said Mann. “On both occasions I said to no one in particular, ‘Wow, this a long drive.’ ” If Husson made both legs of that drive only to find out the game was cancelled, now that’s a road trip that stunk.
68. The glass ceiling award: Occidental is 19-2 in its past 21 games, with both losses coming against West Coast power Linfield. That is the Tigers’ reward for an unbeaten regular season —a first-round game at the defending national champions and a 63-21 loss.
> From fan Nate Brown: “The CCIW. Contrary to some people on the message boards, I still believe the CCIW is a stronger conference top to bottom than the OAC (six out of eight CCIW teams have made the playoffs in the past 10 years, compared to five out of 10 OAC teams), but the top of the OAC is something we just can't get past. I would like to point out that since 1992, only four CCIW playoff teams lost to someone other than Mt. Union (including Millikin's first two playoff appearances in 1998 and 2000 and first-timer North Central this year), but Augie's destruction in Alliance this year shows that this is still a glass ceiling for us. We are 12-4 against other teams, and 0-10 against MUC in the playoffs in that stretch.
Yeah but Nate, two of those four losses came against OAC teams other than Mount Union: North Central to Capital this year and Millikin to Ohio Northern in 2000. And Wheaton beat Baldwin-Wallace 16-12 in 2003 before losing to Mount Union. Wittenberg in 1998 was the only non-OAC team to eliminate a CCIW team, so give the rest of the OAC some credit for being the CCIW’s glass ceiling, not just Mount Union.
69. The constant turmoil award: In 1994, Tom Clark revived a dormant Catholic football program which was nearly eliminated after the 1993 season. With offensive coordinator Marty Favret, now head coach at Hampden-Sydney, by his side, Clark’s Cardinals were playoff regulars in the late ’90s. Favret left after the 1999 season, and Clark left after going 6-4 in 2000. Rob Ambrose coached a 3-7 season, leaving in July for a Division I assistant’s job. That left Tom Mulholland as interim coach in 2002, a position he kept in 2003. Clark returned in 2004 to find eight starters suspended, and went 0-10. The Cardinals went 3-7 with a star receiver and a budding quarterback, only to have Clark resign a second time, this time for a coaching job at Liberty. That means from 2000-06, the Cardinals will have had five head coaches, if you count Clark twice. Catholic hired David Dunn, who spent just one year at Becker before leaving.
70. Alumni awards: A Division III alumnus was being named a first-time head coach in the NFL as we wrapped this column up. Eric Mangini, like mentor Bill Belichick a Wesleyan graduate, was tabbed to take over the New York Jets.
A couple dozen Division III alums were employed, mostly as assistant coaches, around the NFL over the past few years. There’s no telling how many of them will land on their feet with 10 NFL teams turning over their coaching staffs this offseason.
At Curry, former New England Patriots Steve Nelson and Mosi Tatupu are coaches, Nelson in charge. Although it was an NAIA school when he played, former Cal Lutheran tackle (’70-72) Rod Marinelli was named Lions coach.
Buffalo’s London Fletcher, Seattle’s Jerheme Urban and Carolina’s Jamal Robertson were among the Division III alumni who logged significant minutes for their NFL teams this season.
Elsewhere, G.A. Mangus recently resigned from Delaware Valley to become offensive coordinator at Division I-A Middle Tennessee State. Steve Ryan, a 1989 Wheaton graduate, coached Morningside into the NAIA playoff semifinals.
The 2005 year in review continues
Six teams that far outperformed their preseason ranking
UW-Whitewater, Wesley, Thiel, Ferrum — we know those teams excelled. How about …
32. Bridgewater State, ranked 182nd of 231 by myself and Pat Coleman in the preseason, finished 9-1.
33. Frostburg State, ranked 160th, went from 2-8 in 2004 to 6-4, not including an ECAC Bowl loss to Moravian.
34. Bowdoin, ranked 189th, flipped its record from 2-6 to 6-2. Though they were fortunate to win some early games during which they were painfully outgained, the only teams to beat the Polar Bears were Trinity and Colby, a combined 15-1.
35. Defiance, ranked 221st, went to 6-4 from 1-9.
36. Maine Maritime, ranked 207th, went from 3-6 to 7-3.
37. We ranked Trinity (Conn.) 59th. Simply put, we just weren’t respecting the NESCAC powerhouse. I finished with them in the top 20 on my ballot, ahead of Trinity (Texas).
38. Notable steps backward: Shenandoah‘s slide, from the 2004 playoffs to 1-9 this season, is about as far as you can go.
Norwich missed Pierre Garcon, falling from 7-3 (7-4 with an ECAC loss to Alfred) to 3-7 with their star sophomore at Mount Union. Springfield slid from 8-2 to 4-6, while Lake Forest, Nichols and The College of New Jersey also won four fewer games than in 2004. Mary Hardin-Baylor and Carthage were each down by four as well, but more due to exceptional 2004 records than bad seasons in 2005.
Grinnell, Mount Ida, UW-Platteville, Wooster and Muhlenberg each won five games fewer than it did in 2004, while Shenandoah dropped by six.
Seven teams that fell well short of their preseason ranking
There were some dogs for sure, led by Shenandoah at 62 and Emory & Henry at 74. Both went 1-9. Here are five more bad calls:
39. No. 29 UW-Stevens Point had national champion Linfield on the ropes in 2004, but finished 4-6 this year against a brutal schedule.
40. No. 44 Muhlenberg’s precipitous drop from the playoffs to 3-7 wasn’t quite as bad as Shenandoah’s, but the Mules were the team that emerged from the five-way tie to represent the Centennial Conference in the playoffs in ’04.
41. No. 47 Pacific Lutheran. One of only four in our top 50 to finished with a losing record. The Lutes’ fall from 1999 national champion to 3-6 this year would have been more painful if they weren’t so youthful.
42. No. 57 UW-Platteville dropped to 1-9. Perhaps we were giving out too many points just for being in the WIAC, but then again, this was no typical year in that league. The good was great (UW-Whitewater). And then there were the Pioneers, who lost every game after a 26-0 win over Dubuque to start the year, and allowed 37 points per game in the nine losses.
43. No. 56 The College of New Jersey went from 7-2 on the playoff fringe to 3-7, including a 30-13 season-opening loss to fellow disappointment Muhlenberg.
44. Millsaps, ranked just 106th but with an coaching staff with recognizable names and Division I-A experience, and coming off a 4-5 year, went 2-7.
45. We only had Mount Ida at No. 156 following a 6-2 season in 2004, but the tagline earns it play here. In the 1-231, we predicted Mount Ida was “looking at another small step forward.” It finished 1-9.
46. First-half teams that went bad in the second half: McMurry, WPI, Kenyon, UW-Stout.
47. Best second half team (The slow start, strong finish award): Remember that five games does not a season make. There were several solid nominees for our ‘slow start, strong finish award. Guilford and Willamette had two of the best second halves, but we have featured them elsewhere. A third team had a great second half: After a 1-3 start, Howard Payne could have given up on 2005. Instead, a 24-20 win over Mary Hardin-Baylor, No. 2 in the country at the time, began a streak for the Yellow Jackets. Howard Payne won its last six games, four by a touchdown or less, to get to 7-3 and finish tied for second in the ASC.
48. Proof that wins are hard to come by: Aside from Trinity (Conn.), which didn’t have to put its 8-0 record on the line in the playoffs, no one went undefeated. But 11 went winless. They were Massachusetts Maritime, Nichols, Concordia (Ill.), Wesleyan, Lewis and Clark, Heidelberg, Becker, Macalester, Menlo, Juniata and Tri-State. To be fair though, 11 teams did finish the regular season unbeaten, and the only team to make it through the playoffs without a loss, Mount Union, lost in mid-October.
THE MEMORABLE STATISTICS
49. Hard to beat the OAC in the playoffs: With Capital — No. 3 on my final ballot — eliminated in the round of eight by Mount Union, it marked yet another year when one of the country's best teams was stopped by the best team, who also happened to be a conference rival. Since the playoffs expanded from 16 teams in 1999, the OAC has sent 12 teams to the postseason. The conference is 33-8 in the playoffs since then, but four games were head-to-head meetings, meaning the conference is 29-4 (.879) against teams from other conferences.
> Suggested by: Chris Barr
50. Receptions aren’t everything: Mary Hardin-Baylor wide receiver P.J. Williams only caught 32 passes but had a great year, with 11 total touchdowns and 1,428 yards all told, between kickoff and punt returns. He also broke a Division III record with 278 punt return yards in a game.
That record in and of itself caused some consternation among Widener fans, who were aghast when we noted Williams had broken the record of Otterbein’s John Conroy. But of course, when Billy “White Shoes” Johnson set his punt return record in 1972, Widener was Division II. The first Division III championship wasn’t held until 1973.
> Suggested by: Colin Bloodworth of Belton, Texas
51. One dad, 7,059 passing yards: This e-mail from the father of three Division III quarterbacks, including two that started this year, fit well here:
“Keith - I'm not sure what category this would be, but against Dickinson, J.D. Ricca (my son) threw 6 TD passes in the first half to six different receivers … maybe never been done before … and you'll be glad to know that you still hold the individual record for most interceptions of a Ricca in a game (4) ... but the way Catholic heaves it that may not last much longer.
John Ricca”
Keith Ricca passed for 3,311 yards for Catholic, while J.D. passed for 3,748 for Hampden-Sydney. Both were among the nation’s top 10 in total offense, though only J.D. was in the top 70 (he was fourth) in passing efficiency.
52. Thirteen sacks, then eight fumbles: In their 62-3 playoff victory over Monmouth, St. John’s had 13 sacks and held the Scots to minus-3 rushing yards on 44 carries. And Monmouth held the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game (38:20). Ouch.
The following week, by the way, the Johnnies fumbled eight times, losing seven, in a 34-7 loss to UW-Whitewater.
> Suggested by: Ryan Coleman
53. Standings falling into place: “Interestingly,” says Mann, “not a single team in the SCIAC beat a team that finished higher than them in the standings. Occidental was undefeated, Cal Lutheran beat everyone but Oxy, Redlands everyone but those two, etc. There were some close games between these teams, but no upsets according to the final standings.
Other leagues had remarkable symmetry in the final standings. Like the SCIAC, no two teams won the same number of conference games in the IBFC, Empire 8, NEFC Bogan or Liberty League. The W column in the conference standings reads 7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 (without the 7 in 7-team conferences), and the L column read the same back up. There’s no guarantee the standings will shake out that way, even in a closed league like the NESCAC, whose teams were a symmetrical 8-0, 7-1, 6-2, 6-2, 5-3, 3-5, 2-6, 2-6, 1-7 and 0-8.
54. Fast starts: Thiel finished the season with the nation’s ninth-best rushing defense, allowing just 80 yards per game. Waynesburg’s Ryan Abels ran for 102 yards against the Tomcats … in the first quarter. The Yellowjackets built a 21-0 lead, but Thiel came back to win 35-28 in two overtimes. And Abels finished with 125 yards rushing.
> Suggested by: Ronald Abels
55. Virginia is for offense: Teams from the Old Dominion, or those who played several games inside its borders, take home our “most bang for the buck” honor this season. Sure, their poor defenses didn’t get them very far, even for the state teams that made the postseason, but it sure made for some fireworks on Saturdays.
Consider the offenses of Ferrum, Hampden-Sydney and Bridgewater. Remember that Guilford and Catholic racked up much of their offense in the state, as members of the ODAC. Even Randolph-Macon had the 12th-ranked receiver in Division III.
56. Least bang for the buck: “Look no further than the Framingham State Rams who managed to score just 57 points on their entire season,” says Paul Schreel, a former Division III player who worked with our Gordon Mann during three playoff broadcasts. “Shut out four times on the year, they actually managed to win two games this season (which accounted for 41 of their 57 points). The Rams have not broken the 100-point plateau for a season since 2001 so their inability to light up the scoreboard is nothing new. The Rams gave up 57 or more points in a game twice this season, against Bridgewater State and Fitchburg State.”
Across Division III, Schreel notes, 78 teams scored 57 or more in a single game.
57. Remember how difficult offensive consistency is to find: Lebanon Valley (2-8) scored 35 or more five times, and scored 27 once. In the other four games, they were held to a single touchdown.
> Suggested for two-man show by Jim Coughlin: Lebanon Valley’s Dan Kelly and Adam Brossman.
58. Remember the best individual single-game offensive performance: Every suggestion ATN received for this category was for Kmic‘s 361-yard day against Augustana. Pat Cummings, who called the game for D3football.com, sent the e-mail to nominate him right after it happened: “Nate Kmic's 361 yards against Augustana's run defense, which was allowing 125 yards per game on the ground. No trickery involved — Kmic just did it easily. 37 carries, averaging 9.1 yards per carry with no run longer than 34 yards. Lots to look forward to in Alliance.”
> Also suggested by Mike Bradshaw of Canton, Ohio; Dave Ross (SeventiesRaider); Thiel fan/student Michael Voelker
Others to remember: McMurry’s Ty Sellers (by Ralph Turner), for a 200/200 passing/rushing performance, and five TDs against Louisiana College. He nearly did it again against Sul Ross State, having a hand in six TDs and rushing for 223, but passing for “only” 191.
59. Best single-game offensive performance, team: Rockford and Washington & Jefferson each racked up 778 yards in a game, against Principia and Hanover, respectively. Fifteen teams racked up 658 or more yards in a game, but only one did it against a defense that finished among the nation’s top 120. St. John Fisher’s 672-yard, 58-32 win over Rochester on Sept. 10 ranks as the most impressive, since the 4-6 Yellowjackets actually played a little defense. They held six opponents to 20 points or fewer and had the 95th-ranked defense, including the Cardinals’ big day. St. John Fisher set a school record that day, as Noah Fehrenbach had more than 200 yards receiving and Mark Robinson went over 200 rushing.
> Other games that stood out: Mount Union’s 70-0 win over John Carroll (7-3), UW-Whitewater’s 73-12 defeat of Lakeland, an eventual playoff team, and Augustana’s 64-42 win over Elmhurst, which finished 6-4 and came into the Vikings game allowing 16.6 points per game.
60. Best single-game defensive performance, player: Monmouth double-teamed Gagliardi Trophy finalist Damien Dumonceaux, a first-team All-American defensive end who led the team in tackles. That freed up the other end, junior Kevin McNamara, for 7½ of his 12 sacks on the season. Monmouth coach Steve Bell told the Peoria (Ill.) Journal-Star the pair worked together: “McNamara was just getting the end result. Dumonceaux would flush Mitch out of the pocket and right into McNamara."
> Suggested by: Noah Retka
61. Best single-game defensive performance, team: In their 12 wins, Wesley averaged more points than some basketball teams (47.9). But national runner-up UW-Whitewater shut them down during a 58-6 semifinal win. More stunning was Brockport State’s 47-0 win over the Wolverines, given that the Golden Eagles allowed nearly 21 points per game to everyone else it played.
62. Most overhyped: We’re guilty of thinking Don Montgomery’s experience at Mount Union would translate into immediate success at Emory and Henry. But since we’ve touched on that elsewhere, let’s touch on something else that gets more play than it deserves:
We've heard about enough of these false records that have arisen since the NCAA began counting postseason statistics in official records, something it did not do before 2002. This season's most-repeated record-that-really-wasn't involved UW-Whitewater sophomore running back Justin Beaver.
Although Beaver finished with 2,420 rushing yards, a tally few have reached in a single season at any level, he did it in 14 games, including a 30-carry, 125-yard Stagg Bowl. That breaks down to 172.8 yards per game, which is both ridiculously impressive and nowhere near the Division III record. In fact, by average, it's not even one of the 10 best seasons of the past decade or one of the 25 best all-time.
The highest rushing total truly belongs to Simpson's Ricky Gales, who rushed for 2,035 yards in a 10-game regular season, then gained 389 more on 51 carries in a single playoff game. That 42-35 first-round loss to St. John's in 1989 ended the most prolific rushing season in Division III history at 2,424, an average of 220.4 per game. And even that ranks as the fourth-best per-game average, behind three backs who did not make the playoffs. Marietta's Dante Brown rushed for 238.5 yards per game in 1996, Grove City's R.J. Bowers went for 228.3 in 1998 and Coe's Carey Bender ran for 224.3 in 1994.
And considering that Beaver had zero receptions on the season, one could argue that St. John Fisher's Mark Robinson (2,194 rushing yards, 232 receiving yards in 12 games during his sophomore year in 2004) has done what Beaver's done by going over 2,400 yards from scrimmage. Including 345 kick-return yards and 49 receiving yards, Wooster's Tony Sutton totaled 2,634 yards in 12 games (219.5 per) last season.
Point being, Beaver's yardage output was exceptional, but not unprecednted. Perhaps his accomplishment is better cast in the light of him being consistent enough to rush for that many yards, week in and week out. Only three teams had ever played 15 games before (2004 Mary Hardin-Baylor, 2002 Trinity (Texas) and 2000 St. John’s).
Adjusted to include the playoffs, Pat Coleman and I compiled some of the highest rushing yardage totals in history:
Gales, Simpson, 2,424 in 11 games in 1989
Beaver, UW-Whitewater: 2,420 in 14 games in 2005
Brown, Marietta: 2,385 in 10 games in 1996
Chuck Moore, Mount Union: 2,349 in 14 games in 2001
Bowers, Grove City: 2,283 in 10 games in 1998
Bender, Coe: 2,243 in 10 games in 1994
Sutton, Wooster: 2,240 in 12 games in 2004.
OUR MEMORABLE “AWARD-WINNERS”
63. The ‘Glad we went to 32 teams this year’ award: Says Mann: “I’m not sure Capital would’ve made the postseason with two losses under the old format. But they made the most of their chance and pushed the eventual champs to the limit. Wilkes might have been the last team in according to our calculations, but I'm not sure they can be “thankful" for getting pummeled by Rowan in the first round.
Says Paul Schreel, an Ohio Northern graduate who has done radio with D3football.com broadcasters: “Capital would have been sitting at home like ONU did in 2004 had the 28-team field still been in place. They represented very well in the playoffs and showed everyone they deserved their Pool C. And for the record, I am eating some crow in pointing this out so I want to make sure Capital gets the credit they deserve.”
> Capital also suggested by Mike Bradshaw; Eric Park, Paul Schreel.
64. The ‘Wish you were here’ award: Officially renamed the Trinity Bantams Award, as Connecticut’s finest capped a third consecutive unbeaten season without joining the postseason fun. I know we normally go with the NESCAC [for this award],” says Mann, “but they exclude themselves by choice. So how about a pair of seniors who appeared playoff bound until injuries shortened their seasons? Jordan Neal of Hardin-Simmons (preseason No. 4) only played in three games for the Cowboys who were gunned down short of the playoffs. Dustin Johnson of Salisbury (preseason No. 15) suffered a similar fate in the Sea Gulls’ Week 4 loss to Montclair State. Who knows if either team would've made the playoffs with their starting quarterbacks under center. But it's unfortunate they didn't get a chance to try.”
65. The “Don't forget why we're here” award: Sure, there was a national championship game on Saturday, but four UW-Whitewater football players got their hands on something besides walnut and bronze hardware: They graduated the Thursday before the game. From the Stagg Bowl diary on UW-Whitewater's official Web site: "We can't do justice to the day by going in chronological order, because the most important event of the day took place during lunch. Seniors Mike Askren, Michael Chaulk, Jim Leszczynski and Jake Kreiser went through graduation ceremonies. Although the quartet will miss the formal ceremonies in Kachel Fieldhouse Saturday, Dr. Martha Saunders, UW-W chancellor, presented the diplomas and conferred degrees, via speakerphone, with the aid of UW-W director of athletics Paul Plinske and Joe Bailey. Chaulk was recognized for earning cum laude honors."
66. The crazy schedule award: UW-SP, Brockport State, Wesley, Montclair State (played seven of its ten games on the road, including an ECAC game), Willamette
Also suggested: Brockport State, by Mike Mangone
67. The crazy road trip award: On Oct. 8 Husson (Bangor, Maine) had a date with Southern Virginia (Buena Vista, Va.) for some non-conference, non-division football fun. Heavy rains cancelled the game after the Eagles arrived, sending Husson back the way it came. “I’ve driven from Philadelphia past Bangor, Maine and from Philadelphia past SVU,” said Mann. “On both occasions I said to no one in particular, ‘Wow, this a long drive.’ ” If Husson made both legs of that drive only to find out the game was cancelled, now that’s a road trip that stunk.
68. The glass ceiling award: Occidental is 19-2 in its past 21 games, with both losses coming against West Coast power Linfield. That is the Tigers’ reward for an unbeaten regular season —a first-round game at the defending national champions and a 63-21 loss.
> From fan Nate Brown: “The CCIW. Contrary to some people on the message boards, I still believe the CCIW is a stronger conference top to bottom than the OAC (six out of eight CCIW teams have made the playoffs in the past 10 years, compared to five out of 10 OAC teams), but the top of the OAC is something we just can't get past. I would like to point out that since 1992, only four CCIW playoff teams lost to someone other than Mt. Union (including Millikin's first two playoff appearances in 1998 and 2000 and first-timer North Central this year), but Augie's destruction in Alliance this year shows that this is still a glass ceiling for us. We are 12-4 against other teams, and 0-10 against MUC in the playoffs in that stretch.
Yeah but Nate, two of those four losses came against OAC teams other than Mount Union: North Central to Capital this year and Millikin to Ohio Northern in 2000. And Wheaton beat Baldwin-Wallace 16-12 in 2003 before losing to Mount Union. Wittenberg in 1998 was the only non-OAC team to eliminate a CCIW team, so give the rest of the OAC some credit for being the CCIW’s glass ceiling, not just Mount Union.
69. The constant turmoil award: In 1994, Tom Clark revived a dormant Catholic football program which was nearly eliminated after the 1993 season. With offensive coordinator Marty Favret, now head coach at Hampden-Sydney, by his side, Clark’s Cardinals were playoff regulars in the late ’90s. Favret left after the 1999 season, and Clark left after going 6-4 in 2000. Rob Ambrose coached a 3-7 season, leaving in July for a Division I assistant’s job. That left Tom Mulholland as interim coach in 2002, a position he kept in 2003. Clark returned in 2004 to find eight starters suspended, and went 0-10. The Cardinals went 3-7 with a star receiver and a budding quarterback, only to have Clark resign a second time, this time for a coaching job at Liberty. That means from 2000-06, the Cardinals will have had five head coaches, if you count Clark twice. Catholic hired David Dunn, who spent just one year at Becker before leaving.
70. Alumni awards: A Division III alumnus was being named a first-time head coach in the NFL as we wrapped this column up. Eric Mangini, like mentor Bill Belichick a Wesleyan graduate, was tabbed to take over the New York Jets.
A couple dozen Division III alums were employed, mostly as assistant coaches, around the NFL over the past few years. There’s no telling how many of them will land on their feet with 10 NFL teams turning over their coaching staffs this offseason.
At Curry, former New England Patriots Steve Nelson and Mosi Tatupu are coaches, Nelson in charge. Although it was an NAIA school when he played, former Cal Lutheran tackle (’70-72) Rod Marinelli was named Lions coach.
Buffalo’s London Fletcher, Seattle’s Jerheme Urban and Carolina’s Jamal Robertson were among the Division III alumni who logged significant minutes for their NFL teams this season.
Elsewhere, G.A. Mangus recently resigned from Delaware Valley to become offensive coordinator at Division I-A Middle Tennessee State. Steve Ryan, a 1989 Wheaton graduate, coached Morningside into the NAIA playoff semifinals.
The 2005 year in review continues