Photo by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com

By Joe Sager
D3sports.com

Expectations were sky-high for UW-La Crosse entering the season.

The Eagles were coming off an 11-2 campaign that included a WIAC championship and an appearance in the NCAA Division III quarterfinals.

This fall started out fine with a pair of wins, but quickly took a dramatic turn with a three-game losing skid. The team dropped nailbiters at Grand Valley State (20-13), at home against UW-Platteville (30-27 in overtime) and at UW-Oshkosh (34-33).

• Printable bracket file
• d3challenge.com: Take the Bracket Challenge
• Final NPI numbers
• More playoff features

Though devastating, it’s not like those defeats were blowouts or came to inferior opponents. Grand Valley State (10-1) is No. 4 in the NCAA Division II rankings, while UW-Platteville (9-1) is ranked No. 7 in D-III, and UW-Oshkosh (6-4) was No. 20 at the time, but has since dropped from the D-III poll.

Still, those losses put the team at a major crossroads five weeks in the season, especially after blowing leads of 15 and 13 points, respectively, in the fourth quarter against UW-Platteville and UW-Oshkosh.

“We had a lot of momentum going. Eventually, the culture shifted away from the experience. The culture became just winning and our team became only focused on winning. We went away from the values of our football program,” Eagles coach Matt Janus said.

“When we faced adversity, we didn’t have our values to fall back on. We didn’t do a good job building our values and that’s totally on me.”

With their season on the brink, the Eagles hit the reset button and got back to what made them successful in the first place.

“In our team meeting after Oshkosh, we all knew we strayed away from our culture,” Eagles quarterback Kyle Haas said. “We got right back to it and we made it a huge priority to hang out with each other outside of football and not only focus on results. While results matter, if it’s coming from a place of where you’re totally scared to lose, that’s no good. It’s more about growing together as a team and that’s what we’ve done in these past five weeks, that’s for sure.”

With a renewed sense of team, UW-La Crosse was able to navigate its way through the rest of its rugged WIAC schedule for five wins, which included narrow triumphs over UW-River Falls (28-24), UW-Stout (33-31) and UW-Whitewater (24-21) in a wild three-week stretch.

In terms of on-field adjustments, no drastic changes were required to get back on the winning side and earn an at-large playoff berth.

“Just tightening the screws – that’s all we had to do. Our worst loss was seven points at one of the best Division II teams in the country. For the other two games, we had two-score leads in the fourth quarter, but didn’t close them out,” Haas said. “We never lost faith in who we are, though. We always knew we are a really good football team. We are two plays from being 7-0 in the conference. Now it’s a whole new season. It doesn’t matter how we got here. We have a chance to accomplish our goal, which is a national championship. Obviously, we have to go one game at a time, but we have a chance that only 40 teams get.”

The turnaround continues this week when the No. 18 Eagles welcome Northwestern, Minn., (7-3) in a first-round playoff tilt.

“I really have to give credit to our guys. Overcoming a three-game losing streak is hard, especially when you had all these people telling the players they’d do this and they’d do that coming into the season. After we missed a field goal on the last play and lost to Oshkosh, our program was in some disarray. We had to hit the reset button. Our guys recognized what the issue was and we got ourselves back on track and we’re excited to move on to the playoffs for the fourth year in a row.

“There are a lot of good football teams that were left out of the playoffs, so to be fortunate enough to be one of them in the playoffs is pretty exciting for our guys,” he continued. “How cool is that? We’ve accomplished some really good things here, but this is the year I am most proud of, playoffs or not. This is a group of guys who have learned so much. There have been so many lessons throughout the course of the season – overcoming, adapting, dealing with adversity and wanting to correct things. They learned some great life lessons to carry over and move forward with. They will be better prepared for this world when they leave UW-La Crosse.”

The Eagles believe their early struggles galvanized the team and allowed it pull through in subsequent close games.

“I believe we are battle-tested in the field,” Haas said. “The WIAC, in and of itself, is a monster. Almost every game between the top six teams was a one-score game. We’ve figured out how to win the close games. We know anybody can beat anybody, but if we keep figuring out how to win those close games, we can keep things rolling.”

Haas wants to keep his connection going with senior receiver Jack Studer, who has 59 catches for 1,037 yards and eight touchdowns.

“He is incredible. He is one of the best athletes I have ever been around. Best of all, he is a great teammate,” Haas said. “I believe he is the best player in our conference and all have I do is get the ball to No. 20 and we’ll have a good day on offense.”