 UMHB turned back to its bench for quarterback Brian Gallagher down the stretch. Photo by Joe Fusco, d3photography.com |
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An epic shootout, a sacktastic comeback, a quarterback change and a blowout are what we got in our four quarterfinal games on Saturday. Mount Union and Wesley went down to the final 90 seconds after the Purple Raiders roared out to a 31-0 lead, Linfield scored the first 17 and then never again in a loss to UW-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor changed up signal-callers to find a spark to close the game out and North Central was strong in all phases of the game at Bethel.
Keith McMillan and Pat Coleman tell us what they saw on Saturday, talk about what’s coming up and what to look for in the national semifinals, as well as talk about a coach whose career should not go unsung. That and more will be discussed in this week’s podcast.
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I thank you Keith and Pat for the excitment and interest you focus on the athletes of D3 football. These guys give their hearts and souls to their respective football teams and schools. While there are stronger and weaker programs in the nation, they all care deeply for “their” guys.
When you reach the elite eight in the playoffs the cream has risen to the top. To have “supporters” of other programs not suggest, but flattly say your team doesn’t belong makes me alittle hot. To suggest the score will be 128-0 is ignorant. To suggest East coast football doesn’t belong is ignorant.
My guys, the guys I care about flew 1500 miles to Belton Texas to play a very good football team in the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. We csme up short on the field and needed a little better play in some facets of our game to change the outcome. We were not in any way, shape or form afraid of our task. I congratulate all of the young men of St.John Fisher College football on the job they did this year and how they represented themselves, their school, conference, and east coast football.I congratulate all the other teams who made their way to the tournament for their successful seasons. I want to commend the job Wesley did in not quiting with a 31 point deficet and making a heroic comeback on Mt.Union. You hung 59 points on the gods who came to play football with us mere mortals.
I’m sorry to Union players they work hard just like everyone else. I just think some people need to get over themselves alittle bit. What do they say, people in glass houses.
I thought SJF was a great team. The D was exceptional! Forced our QB into some tough situations. Should we get passed WW and MU, I would say it was the SJF D that did it for us! We needed that difficulty now!
Thanks umhb2001. You all have a REALY great football team. Not to disparage the other 3 final 4 teams but I haven’t seen them in person. In mho I believe you have the inside track to the championship. I’ll be pulling for you for what that is worth. Your facilities are magnificent, a place to be very proud of.Best of Luck, we all need a little of that at this point of the season.
fisher03,
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, the D3 Football staff are the best. Pat, Keith and the gang are special people to provide all of us D3 fans information in a variety of ways.
Congrats to SJF for giving the CRU all they could handle. I predicted a close game at Crusader Stadium. I was at the game on the SJF sideline. I was impressed with the head coach, he never panicked and kept his team motivated to finish.
I think if the SJF QB would have ran more north and south things may have been even more interesting. I noticed several plays where he would have gained a lot of yardage.
He may have also not been in the game for long! 😉
Its also ignorant not to read entire comments. I said it would be 30+ and wasn’t going to put a real score. It was a matchup of the hottest team in the country against a clearly overmatched opponent, and weakest team left (1,2,4,5,6,15,25, see the outliner?). The CRU have been destroying teams by 40-50 points every week. So saying it would be the most lopsided game and they would get blown out is more probable than disrespectful. I think everyone was surprised by SJF showing and congrats to them for showing up. Really got the CRU out of their rhythm, which most teams haven’t been able to do. Rarely do you see a two loss team at this point play well, so good for them.
raidertweets,
All is true, I can’t argue that, well said in fact.
I believe NC will beat MU this week. At this point the UMHB-UWW game is a toss up. predicting UWW to win by 7, hope I’m wrong. But, after seeing last weeks let down that’s what I got to go with.
GoCru – Does UMHB have any sort of home field advantage, I’m hearing they dont draw many? Even with that being said, I think they played down to SJF. I mean who wouldn’t look passed the 25th ranked team with UWW next. I think the CRU will play 60 minutes this time. I am nervous for them in this regard, Anderson went 9-20 against SJF. Your not running the ball vs UWW forty times and scoring 45. I think the two games this week are polar opposites. NC and UMU in a shootout. NC doesn’t have Wesleys WRs but anyone can catch against Mount. If UMU can slow that great run game down then I think they win. I don’t think you’ll see the same coaching mistakes you saw last week. This team should be wide awake for this game. But the shell shock of giving up 40 points in a half may be too much to overcome. I think we’ll find out right away.
raidertweets,
The fans will show for this one just because of who we are playing and the temperature will be around 50 deg. We will run the ball often enough to keep UWW honest. But, we will need to be effective throwing the ball on the early downs. This will be a great game trust me.
MU loses Saturday in a close game.
UWW by 7
MHBU and UWW, whoever has the ball last will win.