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Mount Union gets Denison in Round 1 of Div. III playoffs
By JEFF ZUPANIC
ALLIANCE
There was no formal watch party at Mount Union when the NCAA Division III football playoff field was announced. It was business as usual for the Purple Raiders.
Instead watching all the hoopla, the Purple Raiders treated it like any other Sunday. They started the morning with treatments and watched some film from their regular season finale against Marietta. About 30 minutes after the field was announced, the defending national champions started preparing for their first round opponent.
Denison will visit Mount Union Stadium for a noon kickoff on Saturday. The Purple Raiders and Big Red were members of the Ohio Athletic Conference for nearly a century until Denison left for the North Coast Athletic Conference in 1983.
Mount Union (10-0) brings the nation’s longest winning streak (25 games) into the playoffs and is sitting on 99 all-time postseason wins, which ranks first in Division III.
“I like where we are at right now (heading into the playoffs),” Mount Union head coach Vince Kehres said following a 49-7 win over Marietta to close out the regular season. “We have a veteran team that’s been battle tested and we’ve answered the challenges to this point.”
Interestingly enough, the Purple Raiders first-ever playoff win came against Denison in 1985. That’s also the last time the Big Red qualified for the playoffs.
Denison (8-2) won the NCAC and will visit Alliance for the first time since 1989. That was four years before Mount Union won the first of its 13 national titles.
Although the NCAA doesn’t announce the official seedings for the tournament, the Purple Raiders are presumed to be the overall No. 1 seed with Mary Hardin-Baylor, Wisconsin-Whitewater and Brockport getting the other three top seeds.
Mount Union and Mary Hardin-Baylor met in last year’s Stagg Bowl while Brockport was also in the national semifinals and lost to the Crusaders in Belton, Texas.
This year’s national title game will be played in Shenandoah, Texas after a 25-year run in Salem, Virginia. The Purple Raiders have played in 20 of the last 25 title contests.
The rest of Mount Union’s bracket features Centre taking on Washington & Jefferson, John Carroll versus Randolph-Macon and Delaware Valley versus Muhlenberg.
“Our first concern right now is getting healthy. We have a few little injuries here and there, but we will work on getting those guys ready,” Kehres said. “It’s been a good regular season for us and we are in a good spot going into the playoffs.”