The Western Address Volume 2 Issue 13

NAIA & D3 Playoffs | First Round

What a day for NAIA football.

Three of the four games came down to the wire with results which help to dispel tired narratives of conferences viewed as lesser and undeserving of postseason participation.

For both the NAIA and Division 3, this weekend was more of a preliminary round as only 8/20 & 16/40, respectively, were active with mass byes awarded to the top 60% of the field. This coming weekend we will truly get into the swing of things.

Kansas Wesleyan Coyotes 20 | Dickinson State Blue Hawks 27

It had been 20 years since the last time the Blue Hawks took the field at home for a playoff game, and perhaps they opened the game with some nerves and outsmarting themselves.

Against the expectation to try and establish the run, the Blue Hawks had QB Will Madler open the game passing, but inaccuracy and a holding penalty led to a 3 & out with a poor punt that may have been partially blocked giving the Coyotes the ball in great field position.

Kansas Wesleyan is another team based around running the ball and so they also opened against type but QB Byron McNair would find WR Darrias Pearsall behind an intersecting pair of routes for an early 41-yard touchdown. McNair would find room pushing the ball down the seams a few times in the game as the Dickinson defense was mostly stout up front but their secondary seems to be a relative liability for the unit.

But the Blue Hawks would respond with a long touchdown drive, an interception from a diving, reaching Riley O’Donnell, and a field goal to end an eventful first quarter with a 10-7 lead.

The ground game would start to click in the following Kansas Wesleyan drive, punctuated by a Luke Armstrong 24-yard touchdown.

Armstrong had run for 1297 yards on only 160 carries in his 11 regular season games but was largely held in check.

The second exception to this was a few plays into the 2nd half as he would hit a hole at speed and go 75 yards for the touchdown, and a 20-10 lead due to a blocked extra point.

Armstrong would finish the game with 156 yards on 22 carries, but 20 of those carries would total only 57 yards.

That blocked kick seemed to shift the tide as the defense would hold the rest of the way, though after a field goal late in the third quarter, the ensuing kickoff was returned for a touchdown by KWU but brought back on a penalty.

Will Madler was the MVP down the stretch. He may have had issues pushing the ball down the field - the wind was brisk though not insurmountable - but as the backfield depth chart was cut down by injury he put the team on his back and scored 2 second half touchdowns including the game-winner with less than 30 seconds left.

His final stats may have only been 16/25 for 126 yards and an INT, but he ran the ball 17 times (which includes 4 sacks) for a net of 48 yards while running backs Braden Zuroff and Caleb Rist added 22 for 90 and 16 for 76 before leaving the game.

This was a great comeback and celebration of North Star football in the final home game in conference history. For Dickinson State, they advance to the round of 16 for the second year in a row of the still-new 20-team NAIA playoff.

In other news…

Saint Francis (IN) Cougars 24 | Southwestern Moundbuilders 31

OUAZ Spirit 37 | Friends Falcons 45

UPike Bears 42 | Baker Wildcats 35

The University of Pikeville Bears were derided all week as being unworthy of a playoff berth with a regular season record of 5-5, but they won their conference championship and playoff bid fair and square, so here they were against 13-seed Baker. This was a wild back-and-forth game, but their victory is an exclamation point that all conference/divisional champions do indeed deserve the opportunity to compete in the playoff.

Although Kansas Wesleyan could not escape with a win in Dickinson, the success of Southwestern and Friends is important for the perception of the KCAC as their current scheduling structure precludes members from normal out-of-conference matchups outside of the playoff and it is clear that the top programs should be taken seriously at a national level.

Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens 13 | Whitworth Pirates 21

This sat in the D3 bracket as a play-in game to face presumed #1 North Central (IL) led by the incredible Luke Lehnen. Not exactly an advantageous spot to be in.

Alas, you play to win the game, and the Pirates came out cannons ablaze with touchdowns on their first 2 drives and a 14-3 lead less than 10 minutes into the game.

Hometown hero Ryan Blair was excellent, but the Sagehens were stout against the run, holding Luis Salgado to only 15 yards on 10 carries and the team to a net of 38 yards.

Blair did take 3 sacks, but he finished 28/37 for 303 yards and 3 touchdowns ahead of what will likely be his final game.

Pomona-Pitzer would not go quietly into the night as Grady Russo continued to produce, but they couldn't find the endzone in the second half.

Unfortunately, the official record of the game has a clear error as the touchdown they did score in the first half does not appear in the scoring summary, and in the play by play it says pass incomplete and touchdown in the same line. I don't know if this will be fixed in due time, but at the moment Russo is on the record as completing 33/58 for 358 yards with an interception and 4 sacks, but there should be a 2-yard touchdown pass to Sander Wimmer added to their stats.

Russo would also lead his team in rushing with 57 yards, which is an area which must improve for next season. I'm not sure it it's more of a schematic or talent issue, but the approach needs to change to be more consistent. The Sagehens should be a major threat to return to the playoffs and even advance over the next two seasons if they can add talent around Russo.

This was a game that I expected to be higher scoring, but it was still close down the stretch as the SCIAC’s season ended in Spokane for the second year in a row.

The decision to move the D3 playoffs to being exclusively viewable on ESPN+ is quite frustrating for myself as the service is not available in Canada. It feels like a very anti-fan move, especially for fans of schools (like Pomona-Pitzer) who signed on with FloSports for the regular season would now need to pay for a second unrelated service to watch them in the playoffs.

This weekend was also D3 Bowl Week, so I thought I should include those results since I had talked about them before the season.

ECAC Bowl Series - Asa S. Bushnell Bowl

Alfred 14 | Western Connecticut 45

ECAC Bowl Series - Clayton Chapman Bowl

Rochester (NY) 23 | Brockport 42

ECAC Bowl Series - Scotty Whitelaw Bowl

Stevenson 18 | Morrisville State 21

Centennial-MAC Bowl Series

Widener 7 | Muhlenberg 34

Franklin & Marshall 7 | Delaware Valley 0

Dickinson 14 | FDU-Florham 49

Chesapeake Challenge - Cape Henry Bowl

Wilkes 21 | Washington & Lee 40

Chesapeake Challenge - Cape Charles Bowl

Moravian 35 | Shenandoah 14

Opendorse Series - ForeverLawn Bowl

Hanover 13 | Wabash 10

Opendorse Series - Extra Points Bowl

Marietta 13 | Westminster (PA) 27

Fusion Bowl

Husson 14 | SUNY Maritime 21

Lakefront Bowl

Monmouth (IL) 14 | St. Norbert 20

Isthmus Bowl

Wisconsin-Stout 32 | Wheaton (IL) 35

These games make sense from the upper Midwest to Northeast regions due to the density of schools. Of course it would be fun to get an extra game for Pacific Lutheran and Chapman, or to have one of them play a team from Texas. Minnesota, or Wisconsin, but the cost of travel is prohibitive. These bowl games are really just striving to break even and not be a burden on any participating programs, and so I cannot foresee any Western programs taking part in one in the future.

NAIA Playoffs | Round 2

Saturday, November 30th

Dickinson State at Montana Western | Noon MT

Northwestern (IA) at Montana Tech | 1PM MT

NCAA-Division 3 Playoffs | Round 2

Saturday, November 30th

Whitworth at North Central (IL) | Noon CT

Texas Lutheran at Linfield | Noon PT