Looking ahead to Saturday

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The national media is going to flock like … well, a flock of something … to this Northwestern (Minn.) doubleheader story. Northwestern is in the suburbs of St. Paul, a provisional Division III member in its first year, four years away from being a full member. We’ll cover it, of course, but we’ll keep in mind that there are games that affect playoffs and teams who are actually eligible for them.

To wit:

Under the radar key playoff game: Johns Hopkins hosts Franklin and Marshall. Although most games in the Centennial Conference this season matches up 2004 co-champions (there were five of them, after all) this one is likely to have an impact in the final analysis. Question is whether F&M can score — the Diplomats have scored just 42 points in four games while Johns Hopkins has allowed 27 in four games. The schools were picked 1-2 in the conference’s preseason poll, combining for nine of the 14 first-place votes and separated by one point.

Above the radar key playoff game: Bethel hosts No. 7 St. John’s. You might have heard of these two teams. It’s also by far the most important game taking place in the St. Paul suburbs this weekend. This is an elimination game for Bethel. Winner has to take down St. Olaf and Concordia-Moorhead later.

Long road to go key playoff game: Augustana at No. 13 Carthage. Just the second in a list of games between the top four contenders in the CCIW.

Long road to go key playoff game II: No. 8 UW-Whitewater at UW-Stevens Point. Stevens Point might be out of the running with a loss, leaving just La Crosse, Stout, Eau Claire and Whitewater as serious WIAC title candidates. If Stevens Point wins, it’s still a five-team race, even with River Falls, Oshkosh and Platteville as spoilers.

Who-are-these-guys key playoff game: This game almost didn’t get scheduled — it was on, then off, then on again this offseason. And if you don’t know who Huntingdon is, you should soon enough. Even if they can’t hang with No. 10 Trinity (Texas), this is a program in building mode in fertile football ground in Alabama. Hopefully they don’t bail on D-III like the last program in building mode in fertile football ground in Alabama — Stillman.

Letdown potential key playoff game: Look out, Thiel, Grove City takes the Mercer County rivalry seriously and looks to be better than last year. To borrow an overused phrase from Division I-A, this could be a trap game for the No. 22 Tomcats.

This is their playoff game: Lewis and Clark’s short season comes to an end Saturday night at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

Irresistible force/immovable object key playoff game: Alma’s Scot-Gun offense (514.2 yards per game) against Adrian’s defense, led by standouts Mike Lewis and Taz Wallace

Insider: The dream

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After reading JJ McDowell’s piece (Insider, Oct. 4) I got to thinking about football at a young age and how I share a lot of the same thoughts and feelings that he does. Football has led me to some of my best friendships in life, and some of the greatest memories that I have had. As I said in my previous post, I am now engaged and with all of the planning underway it has come to my attention that everyone on my side of the wedding party are friends that I grew up with, a couple of them are guys that I met for the first time playing football. Including myself four of us played Pop-Warner together for the Putnam Redskins.

I think every young kid playing Pop-Warner dreams that they will one day become a Heisman trophy winner and go on to play in super bowls. I remember being at that age and how fun it was to dream that one day I would play in the N.F.L.

When I started playing football at age eight I remember nothing being more important than winning. Although that feeling has stayed with me, I do understand that sometimes you don’t win them all. I mention this because my nephew Shawn Jr. is in his first year of tackle football playing for the same team that my brother Shawn and I played for. He is at that age when kids cry after losses, and walk around telling everyone that they will be a professional football player when they get older. He just recently told me that if I don’t want to be a cop that I can drive his limo for him when he makes the N.F.L. (how nice of him) Last week he called me right before my game to let me know that he scored his first touchdown.

We are approaching the half way point of our season and for the first time in school history we sit undefeated at 4-0. This past week we got a huge divisional win against Bridgewater State College who came into the game ranked one spot ahead of us at #2 in the New England D III football poll. With the win on Saturday we moved up to #2 — the school’s highest ranking.

A steady effort by the offense and a great game from the defense was crucial in stopping Bridgewater’s high powered offense. Dee Whitehead had a big day for the defense coming up with a fumble return for a TD, and also a pick late in the game that sealed the win. The game had a little extra hype as a couple of Bridgewater’s players were very vocal in the papers in the week leading up to the game. The win put us atop the division with Maine Maritime who we will square off with in two weeks.

This week we are back on the road as we travel to Beverly, Mass., for a showdown with Endicott College. We are preparing as best we can right now trying to deal with some injuries as I’m sure every college team is by now. A concern for us as always when we go on the road is whether or not we will make it there. The last time we traveled one of our buses broke down and caught on fire. As long as nothing happens that prevents us from getting to the game on Saturday it should be a great game between two very good teams.