QB Joe Boyle dashes to victory in Northfield. Photo by Biasi.
In the event you decided to glue yourself to cable or network television this weekend indulging in college and professional football, you might have missed one of the most fabulous fall weekends of the season. At least in the southwest metropolitan area of Minneapolis, Saturday was particularly satisfying.
Not only was the weather to the liking of MIAC fans around the league, so were the topsy tervey battles of what is now looking much like the fabled parity of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. A common argument come playoff time pits the top to bottom toughness of the Cheese League versus the soft MIAC and the always healthy but supremely talented Johnnies.
This past weekend the suddenly balanced MIAC featured a “pistol hot” Gustavus Adolphus defeat of the Bethel Royals in Arden with the equally potent St. Olaf Ole’s hanging on to beat previous league leader Concordia Cobbers. The Hamline Pipers found themselves once again in a one point game losing to Carleton while the Auggies hit a last second field goal to snake bite the Tommies.
The Johnnies of course took the weekend off and observed the MIAC prove its parity and toughness ending Saturday afternoon with four teams tied for first place. As their only assignment this weekend was to pray for the safe return of their head coach from the Italian Sports Hall of Fame, St. John’s can thank the toughness of the MIAC for returning them back to first place.
What seemed to be a relative long shot to make the playoffs only one week ago now appears significantly more likely of happening. That is of course if the Johnnies win their remaining games again Augsburg and Carleton. Helping to launch the improbable are the Gusties who are taking a liking to the newly “tough” MIAC and at the same time elevating their performance for outgoing coach Jay Schoenebeck.
If the Johnnies can muster the points in the final two weeks to beat the offensively potent Auggies and Knights, the red hot Gusties host the co-leading Cobbers on the last weekend of the season. The game will decide the automatic qualifier to the NCAA DIII playoffs.
At least one prominent member of the Johnnies radio broadcast team announced if the team won out following their victory over St. Thomas, St. John’s would make it into the playoffs as an at-large qualifier. Little did the reporter know the Johnnie’s probable entry into the DIII playoffs would be as the conference champion.
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