When the previous “biggest win in school history” is from the 1950s, replacing the entry at the top of the list means something.
Sure, you could quibble over whether a win against Syracuse from seven decades ago, or a national quarterfinal win at Brockport in 2002, or a quarterfinal win at UW-Whitewater in 2016 should be next on the list, but no regular season win, even one against Mount Union, compares with beating Mount Union at Mount Union in the playoffs.
A win of this nature is so iconic that the head coach’s phone blows up, and so does the feed of everyone else even remotely associated with John Carroll football. The traffic on D3football.com nearly doubled in the course of 10 minutes. There’s no pretending this is an ordinary win.
And to John Carroll’s credit, they didn’t try to. We chat with Jeff Behrman, the JCU head coach, about having confidence in kicker Colin Schuler after a missed chip shot in the first overtime nearly cost them the game, about the key final play of the game, and about the team’s return to campus, the reception, and what’s next for the Blue Streaks. We bring back in former co-host Keith McMillan to break down the play, what he saw on video from his perspective as a former Division III football starting safety.
Mailbag questions came hard for this game. The one we chose to answer was whether this means that JCU is up to Mount Union’s level or if Mount Union has slipped and there’s just one elite team. The answer is perhaps no different than it was when Keith and Greg Thomas wrote a column under the headline “Today, we are all Mount Union” after the 2022 Stagg Bowl, for we are all chasing North Central.
We take your mailbag questions. We have postgame audio from all eight games and break them all down. Keith also sits down with Johns Hopkins coach Dan Wodicka and safety Sam Bourdo. Bethel’s David Geebli talks about recovering from fumbling on the first snap of the game. Susquehanna’s Josh Ehrlich takes the blame for the River Hawks’ slow start. Matt Walker talks about UW-River Falls’ slow start, although it was fairly brief. Jesse Scott talks about what they saw that was familiar in DePauw’s run defense. Berry safety Chaz Pope talks about his game-sealing interception. There’s those clips and much more in this podcast. Plus we drop some scoop as to when we will release our All-America team, we answer whether we really thought Johns Hopkins lost some shine after the F&M loss and we bring the receipts to prove it (they’re all on the website).
Patrick and Greg also hand out game balls, bring you through the stats of the week and we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.
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John Carroll athletics photo by Jose Figueroa; North Central athletics photo by Steve Woltmann; Wheaton athletics photo by Michael Hudson Photography