Category Archives: General

Looking ahead to Saturday

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Here’s my take on upcoming Week 3 games:

Marcus LeVesseurGame that won’t live up to previous years: No. 3 Mount Union at John Carroll. JCU has given Mount Union fits at home at times in recent years, but not this time.

Game that will live up to previous years: Lycoming at Widener.

Top 25 team most likely to get upset: No. 11 Trinity (Texas). Hopefully they travel better than the last time they visited SCIAC country and lost to Pomona-Pitzer. Redlands is better than that P-P team.

Close but not quite: Texas Lutheran will give Mary Hardin-Baylor a game but won’t be able to push over the top.

Best key game: I think the game between No. 13 Salisbury and No. 20 Christopher Newport will be the best game of the day, at least among games featuring two playoff contenders.

Two and a half games: Keith McMillan mentioned in ATN the chance to see Hardin-Simmons and Mary Hardin-Baylor each at home on Saturday, but start a little earlier in the day and take in the first half of the McMurry/Austin College game, which starts two hours earlier on the other side of Abilene.

Wake-up call: Franklin and Marshall better have put its bye week to good use after losing at Bethany, because Hobart is not going to be as … err … diplomatic.

Culture shock: Springfield gets to see what a WIAC team is like. UW-Stout might not have faced the triple option before, but they see the wishbone year-in and year-out, so the learning curve won’t be great.

One-man show: There are doubts whether Earlham’s Justin Rummell will be healthy enough to go against Anderson, so we’ll pick Augsburg’s Marcus LeVesseur, put back in at quarterback last week at Wartburg. (That’s his picture above.) Augsburg went 2-8 last year yet still gave North Central a game on the road. What will they do at home?

Don’t call it a comeback…

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Although that’s exactly what it was for two receivers last week.

Lorne Chan explains how Texas Lutheran Bulldog Chris Edwards regained interest in football after taking two years off. The San Antonio Express-News even cites the role of certain “Division III football Web sites and message boards” in this rejuvenation.

In Michigan Matthew Mowrey tells the inspirational story of Alma senior Nate Jervey who caught his first touchdown pass last weekend since returning from surgery last year to remove a benign tumor. You can read about Jervey, who also played hoops for the Scots, in the Mt. Pleasant (Mich.) Morning Sun.

Insider: One down, 13 to go

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The Wildcats were fired up for our first game against Western Oregon over the weekend. You can only practice against your own team for so long before you start to go crazy. Especially going against our defense which seems to run every blitz known to football and a few others that aren’t. So finally getting to step onto the field against a different color jersey was a great relief, made all the sweeter by the margin of victory. WOU answered on their first drive to knot things up at 7, mostly riding their monster tight end. Our defense made their necessary adjusments and from then on, it was all ‘cats. The offense scored on all but 2 of our possessions; punting once and turning the ball over on downs at the end of the game.

The defense came up big with 5 turnovers, two inside the 3 yard line while WOU was threatening. The first was a pic by DE Brandon Tom at the 1 and the second a fumble recovery by DE Jeff Denney at the 3. And the reward for building a large lead is the opportunity to watch younger guys play. Many were able to play almost all of the 4th quarter and moved the ball pretty well.

This week we have Wisconsin Stevens Point which should prove a much more formidable challenge. Last year they played us tough the whole way, leading for 3 quarters. We started working hard from the start of the week, including our typical monday recovery day so we’ll be in top form come saturday.

The team has been presented with an awesome opportunity for next spring. We have been contacted to possibly play in Vienna Austria after the school year as part of their professional league’s preseason. It would be a 9 day trip, 5 spent travelling to different cities in Austria. Around 80 guys expressed serious interest and we’ll begin fund raising soon.

Speaking of fundraising, many different groups around the country have been collecting and donating money for the gulf states and Linfield is no exception. We asked all the guys to donate whatever they felt appropriate which resulted in approximately $550. Not bad for an impromptu effort. Other groups on campus are doing their own events including an on-campus concert Wednesday night.

It is often in times of great hardship and tragedy that people’s true characters are revealed. Many people are great people when everything is going right. It is when life gets hard that you find out who is truly strong. Which is another reason why I believe football and athletics in general to be extremely valuable. You learn how to handle challenges and adversity. Everyone will face hardships in life, but it is how they respond that will determine their success.