TODAY’S GAME
Wittenberg (10-1) at Wisconsin-Whitewater (11-0), 1 p.m.
Wittenberg proved a worthy road team last Saturday when it was one of three road teams to win one of the 16 first-round games of the Division III football playoffs. The Tigers were dramatic about it, defeating Thomas More in four overtimes.
Can they do it again?
“We’re really prepared to go up there and give all we’ve got,” said linebacker Terrance Crowe, a 2013 Springfield High School graduate.
Up there is a trip to the far north for a second-round game at superpower Wisconsin-Whitewater, a six-time national champion and three-time runner-up since 2005.
“It’s the elephant in the room that everyone knows is supposed to happen,” Wittenberg coach Joe Fincham said. “When you’re playing Whitewater or Mount (Union) everybody knows what’s expected. They’re the Alabama of Division III football.”
Whitewater has been to the playoffs every year since 2005 with the exception of 2012. The last trip previous to 2005 was 1997. That’s the last time the Warhawks lost to a team in the playoffs other than Mount Union.
“The last people you can fool are the players,” Fincham said. “But we’ve got a lot of tradition, and I know our guys will play hard. Now how the thing unfolds? Who knows.”
The second-ranked Warhawks (11-0) will put a balanced offense on the field with a stable of running backs and a big offensive line. In other words, the Tigers will have to stop a typical Whitewater team. Defense, however, has carried the Tigers this season. They’ve held teams to 90.3 yards rushing and 11.5 points per game.
The linebacking corps of Crowe, Dustin Holmes and Jack Kayser has led the defense. Crowe leads the team with 120 tackles and 10 tackles for loss and is second-team all-North Coast Athletic Conference. Holmes, from Tecumseh, is the NCAC defensive player of the year and Kayser also made the first team.
“We put the burden on our shoulders” to lead the defense, Crowe said.
Crowe, who has two more years of eligibility, came to Wittenberg last year after redshirting for a year at Tiffin. He started the first half of last season.
“Terrance has been one of the real bright spots of our year, and every team needs them,” Fincham said. “Being a local guy and really good guy, he’s an easy guy to root for.”
The Tigers needed those bright spots coming off a two-loss season that didn’t include a playoff game.
“The coaches were really hard on us about that, because Wittenberg has a tradition and we have to live up to that,” Crowe said. “We scrapped every game and did what we had to do.”
The Tigers didn’t get a first-place vote in the NCAC preseason poll even though they were picked to finish second. They lost once and won the league.
“We actually went out with a chip on our shoulder,” Crowe said. “We wanted to prove all the doubters wrong. So we all put in a lot of work this off-season and we came together like brothers.”
This week has been about getting over the emotion of the overtime thriller and keeping that chip in place.
Fincham said he could see the hangover early in the week. But by the middle of Tuesday’s practice he said the players picked up the pace. After Wednesday’s practice, he felt even better. The Tigers practiced Thursday morning, went home for Thanksgiving dinner, then started their road trip in the evening. They practiced at Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Friday before finishing the drive to Whitewater.
“We get a chance to go up to their place and play in front of 15,000, which we don’t normally play in front of,” Crowe said. “Hopefully we shock them on their home turf.”
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