Walking off the field, Liddell looked at the visiting fans, still standing and singing Old Wabash. “That’s great,” Liddell said. “I like that. Wish we were like that.”
Winners of 40 straight games, Mt. Union moves on to host OAC rival John Carroll in the NCAA Division III semi-finals next week. Wabash stays home, its streak snapped at 19. But in going 12-1 and in returning Little Giant football to a high quality of play, Coach Chris Creighton and his staff have restored something that’s been missing for many years both on the road and at Hollett Little Giant Stadium – pride.
Alumni from as far away as Wisconsin drove to Alliance for this game. Two Student Senate-chartered buses and at least one fraternity-chartered bus brought hundreds of students to Mt. Union. About a quarter of the fans at the game were from Wabash, and their spirit surprised the home team.
There were two huge Wabash tailgate parties, an official one across from the athletic complex on State Street, and the other out of a huge RV, flying the red and white “W” flag over 20 feet high, inside the parking lot right next to Mount Union Stadium. Wabash alumnus Jim Davlin of Indianapolis rented the RV for a pre-game party that begin before dawn on Saturday morning.
It’s been this way all year. Interest in this year’s team grew naturally as Wabash advanced through the NCAA Division III playoffs. But Little Giant fans outnumbered the home team supporters on the road in places like Hiram, Kenyon and Oberlin this year. Passion on campus and among alumni has risen to levels not seen since the late 70s and early 80s. “Wabash is a special place. We’re part of something special,” said junior running back Chris Morris, who totaled 209 all-purpose yards (165 rushing, 44 passing) in the game. “We believe in each other.”
Senior quarterback Jake Knott, brilliant in directing the Little Giant offense all year, was displeased with his three-interception performance on Saturday. Yet he acknowledged that there’s now a big spark in the Wabash program.
“This isn’t the way we want to end,” he said. “We did do some things for the college and for the campus that will, hopefully, take it to this (Mt. Union’s) type of level. We can always look back and say we got it started…we were the fire starters of a playoff fire that will burn for a while.”
One of Coach Creighton’s core beliefs is that his football team is family. That’s a reason why Little Giant alumni and fans support this team so strongly. Wabash seems like family for the 800-plus students studying there, and for the faculty, staff, and alumni who love the college.
“We are a family,” Creighton said in his post-game remarks to the media. “Some people smirk at this because they don’t understand, but our guys love each other. Our football program is as tight as they come.”
Nate Boulais, senior linebacker, echoes that philosophy. “Coach says we’re family, and it’s like that,” he said. “We’d do anything for each other.”
In the post-game news conference, the first question posed to Coach Creighton was about the enthusiasm and gusto of Wabash’s team and its fans. “You should have seen us if we were doing well,” Creighton quipped. He said that the reason for the spirit was the family environment among the team and among the campus.
Chris Creighton is right. The pride is back at Wabash, and he’s the main reason why it has returned.
SIDELINE/POSTGAME NOTES:
Another coach in his second year at a new college visited the Wabash football team on Friday. Jim Tressel, whose 13-0 and No. 2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes play Miami in the Fiesta Bowl for the NCAA Division I national championship on January 3, spoke to the players and wished them well. Tressel and Creighton know each other through the American Football Coaches Association.
“Coach Tressel said that we’re both good teams, he wished us well, and hoped that the best team won on Saturday,” said junior kicker Olmy Olmstead. Tressel also played against Mount Union during his college days at Baldwin-Wallace.
In addition to the undefeated record, Tressel – like Creighton at Wabash – is credited with restoring pride in the football program at Ohio State.
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Dean Mauri Ditzler was the ranking Wabash administrator at the game. President Andy Ford and others from Center Hall were in Tennessee, attending the funeral of student David Mixon, who died earlier this week.
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The longest punt of the day, 41 yards, belonged to Wabash quarterback Knott. He quick-kicked on a fourth and seven from the Mount Union 49 late in the first quarter. The ball went about 25 yards in the air, but then rolled down inside the opposing 10. With a temperature of 22 degrees and stiff southwest winds of 15 to 20 mph, it was a difficult day for punters, kickers, and special teams.
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In his post-game talk to the Wabash team, Coach Creighton challenged his returning players to become better as a result of this set back. He said he wanted the loss to “Get in your soul, for it to be a pain in your side…to prod you to be better…We’ve got to work harder and be better.”
Creighton also took the blame for the team’s first-quarter jitters. “I didn’t have the guys ready to play at noon,” he said in the post-game interview.
Also in the interview, Creighton stated two things that nearly every Wabash fan already knew but many reporters did not. “We’ve been in some big games...this is not nearly as big as the game we play at the end of the season (DePauw),” he replied in answering a question about whether Wabash has played in such an important contest before.
“Mount Union can be beaten,” he also said in response to another question. “They’re an excellent team. They do it right at a high level. They are very precise…I think anybody can beat anybody at this level on any given weekend.”
John Kerezy is a 1977 graduate of Wabash who lives in Cleveland, Ohio. John is a former Wabash News Bureau contributor and worked at the Crawfordsville Journal Review for five years. John now owns Kerezy Communications Inc. We asked him to cover the Wabash vs. Mount Union national quarterfinal game.