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| Braxton Plunk might be the best Mount Union quarterback without a Division III national championship ring, a distinction that could end Friday night in the Stagg Bowl against North Central. Photo by Tom Nettleton, d3photography.com |
By Greg Thomas
D3football.com
ANNAPOLIS — Thirteen national championships. 22 Stagg Bowl appearances. Mount Union’s history with the Division III football playoffs is as historically impressive as any team in any sport at any level of NCAA competition.
While Mount Union playing in Stagg Bowl XLIX is as familiar as anything we know in Division III football, there is a measure of newness to the 2022 experience for the Purple Raiders. Three championships and four years have passed since Mount Union’s last title. This is now the longest Mount Union championship drought since, well, since Mount Union started winning national football championships in 1993.
Friday will be head coach Geoff Dartt’s first Stagg Bowl appearance since taking over as the head coach of the Purple Raiders in 2020. For Dartt and his players, the road to Annapolis started nearly a full year ago. “We started this journey this year, almost one year ago on Monday, January 10th when they got back on campus. We talked about what we wanted to do, and how we wanted to finish.”
Dartt, speaking at the official Stagg Bowl media day, continued, “The work started right there. We have a sign up in our weight room that says ‘grind out good days’. This day matters. It mattered in January, it mattered in April, when we were doing spring ball. The work was put in and the guys executed throughout the course of the year and we’re excited to have the opportunity on Friday night.”
Dartt is part of the Mount Union championship tradition. He won three national championships as a player at Mount Union in 2002, 2005, and 2006, and has been part of one more as the team’s offensive coordinator coach in 2015. That tradition is a major part of what drives Dartt.
“There's a lot of tradition, expectations and standards, starting with the first national championship back in 1993. That’s why I wanted to be the head coach at Mount Union when I had the opportunity because I don't know any person or coach that would want to not be at a place where there are standards and expectations,” Dartt said.
Success attracts successful people, and Dartt points at the nearly 30-year championship legacy as one of the reasons that Mount Union continues to have one of the best rosters of student-athletes in the division. “The only reason that Mount Union has those standards and expectations is because of the young men that choose to come to Mount Union to play football, allow themselves to be coached, and allow themselves to be developed.”
One of those men continuing Mount Union’s legacy is senior quarterback Braxton Plunk. A 2022 Gagliardi Trophy finalist — an award given to a Mount Union player a record seven times previously — knows the importance of being part of the Purple Raider tradition and the importance of meeting the high expectation set by the decades of players that have come before him..
“It's an honor. It's a privilege to play here and what the alumni have built and the standard they've built that have come before us,” Plunk said. “A lot of our focus and importance is making those guys proud. And we know that just being here is not going to make them proud, but winning it and that’s our goal.”
For junior linebacker Mason McMillen, upholding Mount Union’s championship standard is a daily pursuit on and off the field. “You know, the standard that we always talk about is something that pushes you every single day, whether that's in the classroom, you know, lifting and then on the football field.”
McMillen added, “I think that's something that's brought up through all the coaches and alumni that we've talked about. It's there anytime you're on campus or you're in a football facility and you just have to keep working to fulfill that standard. We're just grateful to be here and hopefully get the job done.”
Throughout most of Mount Union’s championship history, the Purple Raiders have had clear advantages in experience with the Stagg Bowl and the potentially disruptive championship week schedule. In 2022, it is the Purple Raiders’ opponent, North Central, that has more recent experience. The Cardinals have played in each of the last two Stagg Bowls, having eliminated Mount Union in the 2019 and 2021 tournaments on their way to the final.
While Mount Union has a few super seniors that played in the team’s last Stagg Bowl appearance, the experience of the coaching staff — many of whom are Mount Union alumni — that the players have drawn insight from this week.
“Coach (Junior) Collins, our receivers coach, was talking to us throughout the week earlier and about, I think he's been to three or four of them when he played here. The biggest thing that he mentioned was just leave with no regrets,” Plunk said.
“You know, a lot of us are in our third, fourth, fifth years up here, and this is our first time, so these don't come easy and they don't come often.”
Advancing to the Stagg Bowl is never easy. Given the Purple Raiders’ track record of success it can be understood how followers of the division may have taken those championship appearances for granted, or at least expect to see Mount Union in the Friday night primetime slot on national television. Mount Union’s absence from the championship event in the last two tournaments has been noticeable, however.
This week, Plunk and his Mount Union teammates will return to the Division III’s biggest stage and they don’t plan to let the opportunity to bring the Walnut & Bronze back to Alliance, Ohio, get away.
“Any time you get a chance, you want to make the most of it and leave with no regrets.”