D3football.com here hours before kickoff as usual, which leaves plenty of time to kick off a new blog.
Gordon and Pat Coleman are to my left right now, on the air announcing the all-Americans. If you aren’t listening, you should be … if you’re interested in hearing about four or five different pre-game interviews. I know Brett Elliott’s interview already aired … good stuff. Very humble, honest about his NFL future and bashing the lack of a playoff in D-I. Loving that!
Mount Union’s specialists have just taken the field.
The weather here tends to be cold and windy … Salem is the championship site because they make D3 feel big time and have gathered a great volunteer base to support the game, but we could do without the weather.
The field is a fast track, but probably not the same as the turf at Mount Union. Both teams are used to/OK with cold weather, and UW-W played in the snow last week, so this should be nothing new. There is snow around the field from Thursday night, but the field was taken care of yesterday, and even spray painted green (I believe) to make it look good for TV.
We’ll be posting from time to time today, and we’ve seen you go crazy on the predictions thread … but if you’re not here and your TV is close to your computer, pump up the sound from the webcast. We’re pretty sure the D3 die-hards will enjoy it.
We’ll be glad to hear your thoughts pre-game and during. Should be fun to look back at after the fact. Take it away…
Kmic scores AGAIN, his 12trh TD and 1,003 yards. That’s a new record on the later.
Ryan Kleppe goes off slowly.
WHITEWATER 7 MOUNT UNION 28– 2:08 IN 3RD
lillipad said it best…”they’re getting outcoached”….LK is gonna work the clock offensively, and keep everything in front of his defense.
Beaver picks up 16 yards to get 101 on the day and the record for rushing yards in a single season.
KuwaitUWW, glad you enjoyed the shout-out.
A bit of good news for UWW. Kleppe coming back.
Wow. Fantastic catch by Lesczynski and very good throw by Jacobs to thread the needle. Chaulk hits the extrapoint.
As Pat Cummings says, “the Warhawks have life.”
WHITEWATER 14 MOUNT UNION 28 — 12:22 IN 4 Q
Whitewater’s largest rally this year came against UW-Stout when they trailed 10-0 and won 32-10.
As best I can tell with everything else that’s going on, I think this is the only time this year UWW has trailed by more than one score. The ‘hawks need a 3-and-out.
ZZZZZZZIP!
Jacobs fires a laser into the arms of Pete Schmitt for the score. Chaulk adds the PAT and suddenly it’s a one score game.
WHITEWATER 21 MOUNT UNION 28 – 8:37 IN 4 Q
Whitewater takes TO. I think that’s their second of the half.
Mount Union grinding down the field and chewing up the clock. Purple Raiders at the UWW 16 with second and 2 and under 3 left.
I certainly hope that ESPN2 stays with the football game.
Last weekend, the Duke/UT-Austin basketball game was televised and drew 3.4 rating; the Class AAAA Division I State Championship between local Highland Park HS and Marshall drew a 3.7. The power of Texas high school football! 🙂
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
35-21!
what a great game!! yeah Raiders!!!!
As all the realistic, smart and football intelligent people said ALL week, it was a GREAT game against the two best teams in Division 3. Congratulations to Mount Union.
Maybe a rematch next year at the Stagg??
As all the realistic, smart and football intelligent people said ALL week, it was a GREAT game against the two best teams in Division 3. Congratulations to Mount Union.
Maybe a rematch next year at the Stagg??
P.S. – All the people that predicted a blowout (either way) should get on here and eat their crow.
Congratulations to both teams. Good game to watch!
Congratulations to both teams. Good game to watch!
NA-NA-NA-NA HEY HEY GOODBYE Iknowitall from the previous messages! Great game Raiders, Pierre’s speed in unmatched in D3, will win the Gagliardi within the next two years. Warhawks’ played a good game, Beaver is a stud but Mt. was ready for him. Way to bring it home to Alliance! LK outcoached UW-W, yes!!
Congratulations to both teams. Good game to watch!
I wonder how long it will be before SeanGOP and IKNOWNOTHING crawl out into public again. Hey Sean this ones for you:
MT. Onion 35 (at least)
WW 28 (at most)
Congrats to the Raiders! And thanks to Nate Kmic for making my MVP prediction come true (I think he got one more yard rushing than predicted). 🙂
Great Game. Congratulations to both teams.
Hey YouKnowNothing. Great prediction! The country was reminded about the strength of the OAC and Mt. Union. Number eight is sweet.
SeanGOP – Thanks for your insight as well.
I’m sure you will both have some interesting excuse for the outcome. Besides the fact that the better team won today. We can look forward to more of Kmic, Garcon and Jorris.
Great job and congratulations to the Raiders. What a season.
Everyone in Salem have a safe trip home.
Congrats to the Raiders on #8. Especially in a year where everyone had written them off. Also a very hearty Congrats to WW on a great season and for fighting to the very end. WW was only the 2nd team this year to hang 28 points on Mount’s defense. We can also put to rest all that talk about the Nat. Championship being played in Linfield two weeks ago.
[correction: Kmic rushed for 185 yards, not 151. My bad for looking at the stats and not noticing they were as mid-fourth quarter!]
Great game. I missed the All-American list. I’m not familiar with this website & hope you don’t mind me asking. When the the full All-American list be out? Can I view it somewhere? Thanks!
Where are all the DIII football know-it alls from Wisconsin?
I didn’t think so.
How does crow taste?
I want to say I’m not including all WW fans in my comments. Only the ones that talked trash for the last week.
I hope you enjoyed your run. It’s over.
Congrats to MUC on a great win and to my Hawks who played their hearts out. Not a slam to the MUC players but we were surely outcoached more than outplayed today. Again, not slighting the players as they are outstanding!
Fishingfool
I think you are mostly right about the players and the level of play. The two teams were pretty equal in talent. But it appeared that LK realized by halftime that the WW quarterback wasn’t going to hurt MUC deep. When that happened, they squeezed the Line of scrimmage, shutting down Beaver during the critical third quarter, and ran off what proved to be the winning points. LK has a way of making those types of adjustments at the half. Again, a very good college football game.
FishingFool
Wrong.
Most definitely outcoached. Talent was close. What about Kmic and Garcon. WW couldn’t handle them.
Weren’t ready. We’ll be hearing a lot more about Kmic than Beaver in the future as well. Barring injuries.
Enough already. Break up the Raiders. Playing a different game. Eight titles in 13 years? Up their entrance requirements, or make them play with 10 guys or something. Couple (few) more points. Forget the Goooolardy Trophy. Rename it the Kehres Trophy. Make the title game MUC 1’s vs. MUC 2’s. Let everyone else play for second place. And either: move the game to a latitude that will give decent weather, or divide the cost of putting in FieldTurf there among however many DIII teams there are in the country.
I was thinking the same thing about the field today. Since the college hosts the football and basketball championships they should get a good portion of the money to be able to put in FieldTurf. The repair and up keep of regular grass is more expensive in the long run then just getting FieldTurf.
Does everyone agree with replay official that the touchdown at the end of the half was an incomplete pass?
I was wrong about outcome!!! LK outcoached UWW bad. 4th and goal from the 2 early in the third quarter down 14-7 and they go for it. Explain that to me? It was too even teams playing at that point why make such a desparation decision. Make it 14-10 and keep momentum. What was thought process there, there was so much game to go. Instead they give up 95 yard run on turnover and play chase the rest of the day. UWW looked shellshocked all day. Tight end dropping ball at end of half hurt big time. Stanley needed the ball in second half and never got it. Poor perfromance all together by UWW. Didn’t seserve to win the game. They were lucky Mount Union got conservative and gave up some late cheap touchdowns or final might have been 35-7. Congrats to MU. Linfield would have gave you better game!
YouKnowNothing
At least your man enough to admit you were wrong. Terribly wrong!
MUC! MUC! MUC! I hope you enjoyed this. I certainly did.
Congraculations to Mount Union, i was wrong as the majority in the poll.I was not pleased with several cheap shots by the UWW defense. I also think they made too many errors, the dropped TD pass, missed passes for interceptions. overall the best team won. thank you bloggers for all of your good comments. god bless you all.
YouKnowNothing
Do you like crow. I’ve heard from SeanGOP that it tastes like chicken.
Or maybe Warhawk?
Mount Union! Mount Union!
I’ve been following these posts for a few weeks and have refrained from posting until now.
mlusk – Can you learn to win with grace and dignity? IKnowItAll just made a gracious post and made no excuses. In fact, he gave kudos to MUC. Perhaps you could learn a lesson from his last post.
I grew up near Alliance, OH and have been following Mt. Union football since the early 70’s when they were a perpetual doormat in football. It’s nice to see their rise, particularly, since it began when a good friend of mine and high school mate (Scott Woolf) transferred from Ohio State to MUC in the early 80’s. Scott was the quarterback at MUC when they began to challenge Augustana in the 80’s (but couldn’t get over the hump). I now live in Virginia and have been to several Stagg Bowls and MUC as a student body and the fans from Alliance have always acted well, win or lose. It would be nice to see the forum posters that support the team do the same.
Peace to all and I hope to see MUC in Salen, VA again next year!
IKNOWITALL
I appreciate you owning up to being wrong abut the outcome. It wasn’t the fact that you were supporting WW, it was the total disregard for MUC and the constant yapping that it would be a 50 point blow-out that rubbed people the wrong way. I suspect we will see these two teams meeting again next year, so hopefully the predictions will be a little more realistic. I do believe that WW had the talent to win this game, but there are other factors that come into play when you get to the final game. Happy Holidays.
A few thoughts as I sit in Charlotte’s airport awaiting a connecting flight back to Philadelphia…
WHAT A WEEKEND.
Best Stagg Bowl weekend I’ve been a part of…
1. Sat with Mount and UWW fans on the plane from Charlotte to Roanoke. Mount fans were calm, WW visibly jumpy. Their major question: “Why Salem?” Answered later…
2. Hotel Roanoke – 8:30am, “kid” calls and confirms Stone Station is well established at the stadium parking lot, with chicken on the grill.
3. 10:00am – Kmac and I arrive at the stadium and pull right up to Stone Station…witness Llamaguy, Skoaltrain, et al getting down with all that is good in tailgating. TV cameras come by to take pictures of the 75 chicken quarters on the massive grill. This is going to be good. Ric, HSCoach, Theaprof, Seventiesraider, Skunkssidekick, and plenty of others are there. I think to myself…without D3football.com, this doesn’t happen.
4. 11:00am – Crowd building in the parking lot and OLineMom arrives with her 17 pans of brownies…and they are as good as advertised.
5. 11:20am – The chicken comes off the grill and Theaprof is the first to get a piece. He reaches into the container to pull a leg out…the bone comes out and the rest of the meat is left in the container. WOW. I was fourth in line and Llamaguy’s weeklong marination did it’s job. Some of the best, most tender BBQ chicken I’ve ever had. The Whitewater folks start to flock over to “Stone Station” and they too get in line…first come first served with the chicken.
6. 11:35am – The first 45 quarters that were done are now gone and the remaining 30 are coming off the grill. Looks like a Soviet bread line…except, without the poverty, etc.
6a. 11:38am – Stone Station wins best tailgate award and package of goodies from 94.1 Star Country FM.
7. 11:43am – Chicken is gone…still people in line thinking more are on the way. Sorry…as Llamaguy said, first come first served. A gaggle of WW folks are chomping away, and those who didn’t get the bird got Olinemom’s brownies…scout teamers are there, a ton of WW parents including starting TE Pete Schmitt and starting LB AJ Raebel. Good people…
8. 12:00pm – I head on up the press box for the duration, the crowd still kicks on…as Skoaltrain remarked…”There were people on the phone telling those they were talking to…’I’m at Stone Station.”
8a. For those who don’t know, Stone is a reference to the Bridgewater College president…Bridgewater tailgaters gave their tailgate location such a name for their on-campus tailgates and have since carried it on the road…and oh how far they’ve come.
9. Why Salem? I saw some of my flight-mates hanging at Stone Station. That should be enough reason.
10. Myles Brand was there. I was really surprised to here that he would be in attendance, and almost as surprised that Pat Coleman was able to interview him on the sidelines at the start of the third quarter. His overall remarks summarized…1. We’re glad you webcast the game, 2. Even though brackets are regional in D3, this truly remains a national championship, 3. D3 has about 25 schools waiting to gain full membership, bringing total numbers to around 450, chances are they would cap that membership there.
11. Great game…you had a feeling UWW was always in the hunt.
12. Would have never predicted UWW wouldn’t score for more than 2.5 quarters of football. That was their downfall…
13. Replay was well used, took no more than one minute from announcement of review to result of review. The MIAA officials did a decent job overall, I give them a 8.5 out of 10…I think they definitely missed on a few calls, but the ones they made were right on.
14. If Justin Beaver can get out of bounds or in the end zone on that last drive, it would have greatly increased UWW’s chances of a shot on that onside kick.
15. Salem does a great job with the Stagg Bowl, no question…but after watching the field debacle from the 2004 D1-AA championship in Chattanooga, they knew they had to get an artificial surface if they wanted to keep the game. The field conditions today didn’t determine the outcome, but they didn’t help either. If Salem wants the Stagg Bowl beyond 2006, one of the things that will sure up their bid is an artificial surface at Salem Stadium.
16. Got back to the airport by 515 thanks to “kid” and several Mount and UWW fans were there. Got to talking with Bob Berezowitz’s brother who was on my flight. He was obviously disappointed and said he would have rather been going back after a win, but having spent parts of seven seasons covering the Stagg Bowl, and the men’s Final Four, this much is clear…no other D3 team, of the 231 out there, are playing today.
The road to Salem is the chore…get to Salem, and winning is merely icing on the cake. There is no need to say “I told ya so…” about some off the wall predictions. Two teams got there, and no one else can say they did. Just getting there TRULY is 9/10ths the battle, the remaining portion is left on the field.
WW players will look back on this at some point and reflect, knowing that they their experience was a good one.
17. Bill Curry from ESPN2’s broadcast was also on my flight. Didn’t get a chance to talk to him but this much is clear…he appreciates D3. His comments on the Friday night preview at halftime of the D1-AA champ game were very well received by the NCAA committee watching…from where we stand, ESPN2 is an outsider when it comes to D3, we want to see outsiders respect our niche of the market and not treat us as a circus sideshow as some felt from 2004. Good job Bill and Gary Bender.
18. Best Stagg Bowl weekend so far…thanks to the following:
Pat Coleman for his great job on the sideline
Gordon Mann for his production of the broadcast – he was the traffic controller and we couldn’t have done it without him
KMac for being Kmac
All the Bridgewater folks who came and made the Salem experience that much better for fans who might not have known the difference…they do now.
Carey Harveycutter and all the Salem gang for being gracious hosts
Brad Bankston and Chris Kilcoyne from the ODAC for another flawless day of game management…
Great job, great game, great atmosphere…Stagg Bowl 33 over and out.
When you play the best, you get beat like the rest!
Iknowitall,
Very classy. Wish you could have showed this side before so everyone wouldn’t have been calling you out. Anyways I understand how it is. Everyone is cocky about Mount at school, until they lost then it kind of shut us up a little. Hopefully these two play again because I think this could be a good rivalry for many years. Battle of the Purple and Black!
BucksFan,
My comments are directed towards two individuals on this blog. They spent the last week knocking Mount. I have followed MUC football for quite some time as well. I AM ENJOYING THIS. I believe this is your first comment about anything. Your opinioin means nothing.
Thank for your advice.
Good Night.
That 4th down call was bad!!!! Why did UWW not kick the field goal. That play changed whole complexion of the game…………
I was, like most, a neutral observer of the game. The game lived up to its hype and demonstrated the quality of both programs, needless to say. MUC has this year’s bragging rights.
To UW_RF: The call at the end of the half was correct in my opinion.
To mlusk: It’s very premature to assume UW-W has ended its run.
To bvboom: I can’t hear you……
To d3football.com: Great job all year long. We are all beneficiaries of your hard work and effort in keeping us DIII junkies up to date. Have an enjoyable holiday season with your families.
mlusk,
I wan’t aware that number of comments had anything to do with credible statements. 🙂
I know about SeanGOP and IKnowItAlls comments in the blog. Believe me, I bit my tongue (refrained from posting) several times and share your viewpoint about their past posts. I just believe in rising above all that. No offense was intended.
Peace, perhaps we’ll meet in Salem next year.
Iknowitall
You owned up to being wrong. You are not the only one who questined not kicking a field goal.
Gotta Love Coach Kehres today. Never seem him that excited during a game.
Go Raiders!
WW Fans are very good people. Had a ball down here with them. Both teams played their As* off today.
SeanGOP- It’s Mt.Union
MadreLoca7:
We’ll post the All Americans either late tonight, early tomorrow AM once we all get settled back in our respective homes.
If you have a question about a particular player or position, I may be able to answer it.
BucksFan
Looking to get a hold of Scotts sister Kelly. I went to school w/her and Todd at WBHS. Do you still speak to Scott to get me their info?
the 95 yarder was certainly the tide turner. Hate to bash players, but 91 had a CLEAN shot at Kmic for about a 1 yard gain and WHIFFED. Better team won. WWW should have continued to run the Beav straight up the gut instead of sweeping, also
Great Game UW-WW. I just got done moving and finally got my internet up at the new location. Heck of a game. Beaver was for real. Just glad the Raiders got it going after that first Q int and TD by the Warhaks.
Hopefully they’ll keep you in the West again next year and we can do this again a year from now.
Congrats to a great season.
All-Americans posted: http://www.d3football.com/tow/allamericans.htm
There are many things I’d like to say about the game, but also many hours of sleep I’d like to catch up on. The one thing I need to say is thanks to the Stone Station folks for the delicious chicken that Pat Cummings brought up to the broadcast booth as we went on the air this morning. Great stuff! You guys definitely deserved the tailgating prize.
Regarding the third call, I thought he had the ball and crossed the plane of the goal line with it, but I am not an expert on the rules. I talked to another D-III head coach on the sidelines and his view of the replay was that Schmitt had the ball trapped against his leg and never had control.