DePauw receiver and quarterback Robby and Scott Ballentine, with their parents, and their sister Maggie. Provided photo

By Glen Crevier
D3sports.com

The Ballentine brothers — Robby and Scott — have shared many memorable football moments in the past few years, but none may have been more important than one that occurred six years ago.

Scott was a freshman at Andrean High School in Crown Point, Indiana, playing a junior varsity game. Robby was in the stands with his parents — Julie and Shawn — cheering on his brother.

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As Scott recalls with vivid memory: “We were down 13-9 in the fourth quarter with 1:30 left to play. I threw a 50-yard game-winning touchdown. We really carried on celebrating on the sideline. I think he saw that atmosphere and decided he wanted to be a part of it.”

Robby was a junior at the time, excelling in baseball and basketball. He hadn’t played football since the third grade. And he didn’t much like it. “But when I saw how much fun Scott was having …”

Yes, he wanted to give it a shot.

And here’s what happened:

In Robby’s senior season, only his second year of football since his one season in the Junior Bulldog league, he caught 47 passes from his brother for 907 yards and nine TDs, and together the Ballentine brothers led Andrean to the Indiana 2A state championship.

Now, four years later, they are on the verge of even bigger things, leading No. 15 DePauw into the Division III NCAA playoffs where they will play at No. 11 UW-Whitewater on Saturday. 

The brothers’ dedication and success stems from an early lesson from their father, Shawn Ballentine.

“I pushed them pretty hard,” Shawn recalls. “I told them: ‘If you want to be like everyone else, then do what everyone else is doing. But if you want to be better than everyone else, then work harder.”

Scott, a 6-foot, 190-pound sophomore, is the starting quarterback for the Tigers; Robby, a 6-foot, 200-pound senior, was second team D3football.com All-America last season at wide receiver and is now a finalist for the William V. Campbell Award, given to the nation’s top scholar-athlete in college football covering all divisions.

This season, in leading the Tigers to a 9-1 record, and a first-round bye, Scott completed 69 percent of his passes (213-310) for 2,684 yards and 30 touchdowns; Robby had 83 receptions for 1,172 yards and 15 scores, and broke the North Coast Athletic Conference record for career receptions with 244.

In an early-season game against Centre, Robby had 15 receptions, and he set a school record against Denison with 16 catches.

“They are both good in practice,” said coach Brett Dietz. “But they are great in the games.”

Robby and Scott come from an athletic family.

Their grandfather, Bob Cantrell, played basketball at Michigan. An aunt, Jean Cantrell, played basketball at Eastern Michigan. And Maggie, their sister, played softball at Denison.

And now the Ballentine brothers have established their own mark for athletic excellence.

Robby’s Path: The late bloomer

Robby became a standout three-sport star in high school, also playing baseball and basketball, and winning all-area honors from the Chicago Tribune in football and baseball. 

When DePauw coach Brett Dietz began showing interest in Robby playing football, he was all in.

“He had only played two years of football, but when you watched him on film, you could see immediately that he was a good athlete,” Dietz said. “If he had played all four years of high school, maybe we don’t get him at DePauw. He didn’t look like someone who had only started one full season. So he flew under the radar.”

Robby didn’t start immediately for DePauw. But it only took a few weeks. “As a freshman,” Dietz said, “he just kept getting better and better in practice and we just kept moving him up on the depth chart. 

“He’s a natural pass catcher. He knows how to win vertically. He has a good sense of how to run a route and get open.”

Robby always sensed he could overcome his lack of experience with a strong work ethic. “I put in a lot of hours. Anytime I wanted to run routes, Scott was there to throw me the ball.”

Shawn recalls Robby running pass routes alone if his brother wasn’t available.

“And this past summer he’d drive 90 minutes to work out with a trainer near Chicago three times a week. I went with them a couple of times and I can tell you they were hard workouts. Then he’d get home and run routes.”

“I don’t have the greatest speed,” Robby said. “I worked running routes and a lot of mental preparation went into it too.”

In the past two seasons, he has caught 161 passes, 35 for touchdowns and holds numerous conference and school records.

Scott’s Path: The natural leader

Scott has always been all about football. “This is my 11th year of playing,’’ he said. 

“Scott has been a quarterback since day one,” Shawn said. 

He’s the outgoing of the two, so the quarterback position fits his personality.

“Robby is more humble,” said his mother, Julie Cantrell-Ballentine. “He puts his head down and does the work. Scott could be the mayor of Crown Point. He says hello to everyone.”

Said Dietz: "He's a great leader in both how he acts and works. He does not act like a sophomore quarterback. He acts more like a senior. He’s not scared of the moment.”

As a high school sophomore, Scott threw for more than 3,000 yards and 30 touchdowns. Division I schools noticed and the recruiting process was underway. But early in his junior season, a pivotal recruiting period, he broke his collarbone and the letters and calls stopped coming.

Dietz was aware of Scott’s talent and expressed interest. “He was the one coach who was always there after my injury,” Scott said.

“We had film of his sophomore season so we knew the whole story,” Dietz said.

Julie is quick to say that Scott is a true student of the game. 

“In high school, on Sunday afternoons, he’d have the whole offense over and they’d go into the basement and watch film. I’d bring them all pizza. Now he does the same thing in his frat house,” she said.

Robby and Scott are roommates at DePauw. They have a 55-inch TV on the wall, and together they spend a lot of time watching opponents and critiquing their own games.

“If it isn’t school work it’s football for me,” Scott says. “I’m dedicated to this program and I want to take it to the next level. I feel like if I put in the hard work Sunday through Friday, then Saturday’s will be easy.”

And when he senses 1-on-1 coverage for his brother, he’s going that way.

“I feel like he just knows when he’s getting the ball. It’s like twin telepathy. In one-on-one situations I’m 100 percent confident he’ll get open,” Scott said.

You’d almost think that with such gaudy receiving numbers, Scott is showing favoritism on pass plays.

Not so, said Dietz.

“We run a ROP (run-option-pass) offense,” he said. “Robby is our best player. If defense commits to a 1-on-1 matchup, we’re going to him. So it’s not like we are calling plays just for him.

“Deep down they are really good friends. You always see them together. They both really work hard. They really care deeply about DePauw football. So they are comfortable with each other.”

The Whitewater challenge

Their focus now turns to the ultimate test of their hard work: the NCAA playoffs.

DePauw is an at-large team, finishing 9-1 this season, its only loss to John Carroll that cost the Tigers the North Coast Athletic Conference title. 

The loss occurred on Oct. 18, and the Tigers were under the gun to win out or miss out on the playoffs for the first time in five years. “We knew we couldn’t lose another game if we wanted to go to the playoffs,” Scott said.

So they won their final four games, including the season ender at archrival Wabash, overcoming a technical glitch that eliminated all electronic communication on their sideline.

“The coaches had to get on a group chat,” Scott said. “We had no video and coaches had to signal in plays. So it seems like it’s been a playoff atmosphere for us for a few weeks.”

The Tigers likely won’t be the favorite against a mighty program that has won six national titles since 2000, but its last one in 2014.

The two teams met in the 2021 playoffs with Whitewater winning big, 45-0.

“Back then, we were just happy to be there,” Dietz said. “But we’re not just happy to be there anymore. We are going there to win. There’s no scar tissue with this team. None of these players were on that team that lost five years ago. We are a better team than we were in 2021.”

The Ballentine brothers share that sentiment and are confident their football journey still has legs.

“This will be my fourth year in the playoffs, and last year was our first playoff win,” Robby said. “Whitewater is a great program with a great history. But we go into every game now knowing we have a chance to win.”

Robby and his senior class are 39-5 during their four seasons together.

Said Scott: “We are highly ranked. We lost one game, and John Carroll beat us with 14 seconds left. We’ll have two weeks to prepare for this game. It will be a battle, but I truly believe it’s our time.”